The record · Transcript

Council session — 2026-07-16

Transcript from the session's official auto-captions (34,885 words), shown in readable case and split into speaker turns. Speakers are AI-suggested and editor-reviewed (low confidence — auto-captions garble names); each color marks a speaker.

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Good afternoon. I am calling back to order this recessed meeting of the Portland city council. Rebecca, do we start with the roll? That's always a good thing. Let's do the roll.

Good afternoon. Koyama Lane.

Here. Morillo. Here.

Novick. Clerk.

Here.

Green. Zimmerman. Avalos.

Present.

Smith.

Here.

Kanal.

Present.

Pirtle-guiney. Ryan.

Here.

Dunphy.

Here. And can we please read the rules of decorum for the chamber?

Yes. Council president. Welcome to the Portland city council. To testify before council in person or virtually. You must sign up in advance on the council agenda at www.Portland.gov/council/agenda. Information on engaging with council can be found on the council clerk's web page. Individuals may testify for three minutes unless the presiding officer states otherwise. Your microphone will be muted when your time is over, the presiding officer preserves order. Disruptive conduct such as shouting. Refusing to include your testimony when your time is up, or interrupting others testimony or council deliberations will not be allowed. If you cause a disruption, a warning will be given. Further disruption will result in ejection from the meeting. Anyone who fails to leave once ejected is subject to arrest for trespass. Additionally, council may take a short recess and reconvene virtually. Your testimony should address the matter being considered when testifying. State your name for the record. Your address is not necessary. If you are a lobbyist, identify the organization you represent. Virtual testifier should unmute themselves when the council clerk calls your name. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Colleagues, before we get started today, I want to briefly discuss how things are going to flow during this meeting. As you'll recall, last night we held over two proposed supplemental budgets to continue their first readings to the end of today. Those items have been placed at the end of today's agenda to allow us to move forward some necessary business. Before returning to that discussion, as my office has communicated on multiple channels, we. We have extended this meeting to be no later than 6:00 pm to allow the appropriate space for work to be concluded. We're going to start today with two administrative items that are critically time bound. We'll then work through two pieces of councilor Originated legislation that carried public notice that that that carry notice to public testimony. Rather, I intend for us to take up the supplemental budgets no earlier than the end of public testimony on item nine, likely no later than 4:30 p.m. Items eight and 9th may not complete a vote or a first reading today. If not, there is enough flex in next week's meetings to bring them back. Then, regardless of where we are, I'll be moving to pass the supplemental budgets to second reading no later than 6 p.m. Today, as our labor partners deserve clarity on a second reading at least two weeks before scheduled layoffs onwards. Keelan, can we please read item number six?

Item six authorize letter of agreement with the laborers international union of north America local 483 for premium pay to assistants and aides, as defined in the preschool for all program document number 2026-241.

Colleagues, this is an emergency ordinance. And with us is is it sarah daley with labor relations? Hey. Hi. Welcome. Take it away.

Share my screen here for a moment. There we go. Good afternoon councilors. For the record, sarah daley with labor relations, city of Portland. I'm here to bring before you a letter of agreement with liuna. You may recall that I was here approximately a year ago for the first version of this premium for recreation associates working in preschool classrooms. Just a reminder that Multnomah county runs the preschool for all program, and we have 11 classrooms in the city at nine separate parks and recreation sites. And that all preschool for all funding comes from Multnomah county. So this is a letter of agreement that has a yearly renewal that's required because Multnomah county sets their own yearly adjustments. And so therefore, the difference has to be made up between their minimum wages that they share with us in approximately late winter, early spring, and our entry wage for recreation associates. So for the last fiscal year, the minimum wage rate for preschool for all aides was $22.27. The entry wage for a recreation associate, which is the classification that fills that role, was $19.99. And therefore the premium was set at $2.28. That's for any hours. Worked in preschool classrooms for this year. The minimum wage rate set by Multnomah county for the preschool for preschool for all aides, is $23.16. After the July 1st cola, the entry wage for recreation associate was $20.59, and therefore the premium will be $2.57. And then, with the same caveat that I will be here again next year to do this all again.

Excellent. Thank you. Rebecca, do we have folks signed up to testify on this?

We do. We have two folks signed up.

Okay. Let's go to testimony before we do any technical or clarifying questions. Combine that with council discussion and get our folks to come.

We have.

An kasper and Ryan sotomayor. Ryan is online. You can go ahead. Ryan.

I think the tech is working. Hello council president. Hello fellow councilors. Nice to see you all again. Appreciate your time. Just want to encourage an enthusiastic yes vote from each of you on this. Preschool for all aides do remarkable work. They support the lead preschool teachers. They do so much positive work for our communities. And Multnomah county is paying for this. So I was an enthusiastic signer on this and I will yield the rest of my time. Thank you so much.

Thank you very much, Ryan.

And kasper. That completes testimony.

Okay, colleagues, is there any discussion, technical clarifying questions or any further comments on this? Councilor. Koyama Lane.

Yeah, just quickly want to say that a wage of $23.16 an hour means that the work a worker is making about an estimated take home pay of about 2700 a month after taxes, and thinking about rent and living expenses, that's not quite enough to meet ends meet in Portland. I want to specifically call out that care work is really important and vital work, especially taking care of our children and systemically, it's really undervalued. Every worker deserves to have a living, thriving wage, and I hope that in the future we can. It can be even more so. While I support the increase, I hope that we can be a better example down the road and make sure that our staff are getting paid what they need to both work and live here in Portland.

Thank you, councilor Koyama Lane colleagues. Seeing no one else in the queue, this is an emergency ordinance requires nine votes. Keelan can you please call the roll? Rebecca, can we please call the roll? I'm sorry.

Koyama Lane I.

Morillo I.

Novick I.

Clark I Green.

Ditto to everything. Koyama Lane said I.

Zimmerman I.

Avalos I Smith. I Kanal Kanal. Thank you.

Pirtle-guiney I.

Ryan

I. Dunphy.

I. The ordinance passes with 12 votes.

Thank you very much. Can we please call item number seven?

Item seven. Extend lease with urban office and parking facilities for the city kids child care and development center space by five years. Amend clem contract 1001 for document number 2026-216.

Colleagues, this is the first reading of a nonemergency ordinance. I believe christhopher herr with council operations is here for a committee staff summary report. Welcome, christopher. Sorry to make you jump.

No, that's my apologies. Good afternoon, council president, vice president and councilors. For the record, christhopher herr council operations policy analyst. And I serve as staff to the city life committee. The ordinance before you document number 2026-216, was considered in the city life committee on June 23rd, where it was referred to council with the recommendation that it be passed the ordinance authorizing execution of a five year lease with the clown plaza landlord for child care space to be occupied and operated by joyful noise incorporated doing business as city kids, child care and development center or city kids. The ordinance requires that all lease documents receive approval as to form by the city attorney or designated deputy prior to execution. It assigns responsibility for the leases, fiscal and performance obligations to the bureau of fleet and facilities bf while the bureau of human resources bhr will ensure its contractor, joyful noise incorporated, occupies and uses the space in accordance with the lease terms and supports bf lease administration. The city's contribution towards city kids operating costs will continue to be funded through the participating city bureaus and facilities in the downtown blended rate program. The ordinance authorizes ordinance also authorizes the city administrator or designee to prepare future budget documents necessary to account for the city's legal, contractual and fiscal obligations under the lease, the estimated total cost for the rent and associated landlord operating expenses over the five year lease term is $1,256,283. The full impact statements on this includes financial and budgetary impacts. There was no verbal or written testimony provided during committee, and that concludes the committee staff summary. Thank you.

Thank you. Christopher councilor Pirtle-guiney. This came out of the city life committee. Any opening remarks from me?

Yeah, colleagues, this is a simple lease renewal with the crowne plaza for a child. Could child care space. The city of Portland used to offer child care services within the Portland building. When the Portland building was remodeled, that program was moved to this space at the crowne plaza, and this is a renewal of that lease. It is a pretty simple renewal, extending the terms under which we have been operating there. I will note that during the committee, there was a discussion amongst a few of us about tuition rates, accessibility and enrollment in the program, including how to maximize the benefit of the program for city employees in the future, and how we might think about this program moving forward. I'll note that there was also a conversation related to the remarks that councilor Koyama Lane made on the last item about the fact that without subsidy, the cost of child care will never be able to meet the need for wages within the child care industry at a level that is affordable, both for child care users and provides a living wage for child care providers. And one of the ways to address that is through subsidy. This program provides a subsidy through the provision of space by the city in order to guarantee slots at what is a more affordable level than most child care of this quality in our city. That provides a preference for city employees. This lease allows us to continue that program for the next five years. It's something that the committee felt was important, and that the administration wants to make sure we continue to provide. Thanks so much, council president.

Thank you, councilor Pirtle-guiney. Rebecca, has anyone signed up to testify on this item?

No one is signed up.

Okay, great. So, colleagues, we are now into technical clarifying or council discussion. Councilor Smith.

Loretta Smith: Thank you, council president. I have a couple of questions. I'm not sure what side of town is this? Is this daycare on?

We have folks from bureau of human resources here to help answer those. But christopher, I appreciate you jumping in.

And I wanted to also know what is the percentage of city employees, kids that attend this this daycare?

Yeah. Thank you, councilor, and good afternoon, council president, council vice president, city councilors. Ron zito, hr interim director. In terms of the location of the facility, city kids is located. I believe it would be just to the let's see, it would be the south of the keller.

Okay. It's downtown.

That's correct.

Okay. And so what's the capacity?

Yeah. The capacity. Currently there's 96 children. I'm sorry. That's that's incorrect. Let me get up to the current numbers here. The facilities license for 87 children. Okay. Yeah.

And how many city employees are using it?

Total city enrollees is 37 or 58% as of June of 2026, 58%.

Okay. And so do they also get a subsidy in addition to having the the space subsidized, are they also getting a subsidy for the actual child care services?

There's no direct subsidy for city employees, families that participate, but there is priority consideration in enrollment. Okay. And the overall rate of the, of, of the support is, is much less than typical competitors in the area.

Okay. And so that doesn't the preschool for all this couldn't be a like a preschool for all daycare or organ promise.

It does participate in preschool for all.

Okay, so there is a subsidy on it of sorts, correct?

For those participating in the preschool for all there is the county arrangement.

Okay. Okay, perfect. Thank you.

Of course.

Thank you, councilor Smith. Councilor Avalos.

Candace Avalos: Yeah, thank you. At the committee, I asked a lot of these similar questions to about just who is benefiting from city kids and how the program supports city employees. I raised those questions because child care is one of the biggest challenges that are facing working families, and I do appreciate that the city has had this long standing commitment to provide this resource. But I also think it's important that we continue elevating whether we're maximizing the value of this investment because we are committing, you know, $1.2 million over the course of a five year lease. But the primary benefit to employees is priority enrollment rather than, you know, significantly reduced tuition or other direct financial assistance. So I think as we're continuing to talk about employee employee recruitment and retention. I hope we're also exploring the ways that we can make childcare more accessible and affordable to our employees. I had asked also about whether, like, why it wasn't in the Portland building, right. And like it was originally there, there was the renovation. It doesn't sound like there's any potential for it to return to the Portland building, which I think is a shame because I think that was a, you know, a benefit to have it nearby. I know it's kind of close to city hall, but still. So yeah, I just wanted to raise that as we are. You know, we're having a lot of tough labor negotiations and a lot of what we are, we are able to put on the table is not often, you know, financial. And so this to me, I mean, obviously this is a financial commitment in a way, but it's a different kind of investment in employees that I think we should elevate. And I would love to see the city, you know, propose ideas to us in upcoming labor negotiations or just upcoming budgets about how we can expand this benefit. I think it I think it's good that it does qualify for preschool for all. And I think we need to expand that. But what I'm hearing, too, is that it's not necessarily as accessible, and I want to increase that. So I will be supporting this ordinance. But I wanted to put on the record my expectation that we continue to find ways to increase subsidy to employees for childcare. Thanks.

Thank you. Councilor Avalos. Councilor. Pirtle-guiney.

Thank you, council president, councilor Smith, I just wanted to add to your line of questioning that what we heard in committee was that this program is both. Both has preschool for all slots and participates in the irc program, the employment related daycare program. So there are two paths there for subsidy and their rates are. I will just say anecdotally, from my knowledge, having young kids a few hundred dollars a month less than what you would typically pay for childcare with these extended hours, it runs from, I believe, eight in the morning until six in the evening, I think. So it's a a full work day coverage for your base price as opposed to having to pay additional for extended hours. I will also add to what councilor Avalos said, that there was a pretty robust discussion about how we subsidize childcare and whether we should think about subsidizing childcare for our employees in a way that benefits more city employees than this program is able to. Obviously, this level of investment would would not extend very far if we split it amongst all city employees who have childcare aged children. But that was a part of the conversation and something that we may want to return to at some point in the future.

Thank you.

Thank you, councilor Pirtle-guiney colleagues, seeing no one else in the queue to discuss this, this is a non first reading of a nonemergency item. This ordinance, this now moves to second reading. Rebecca, can we please call item number eight? Thank you.

Thank you.

Item eight direct the city administrator to reestablish a permitting improvement team to lead the second phase of the code alignment project. Document number 2026-203.

Colleagues, this is a resolution coming out of the housing and permitting committee. Claire adams with council operations is here for a committee staff summary report. Take it away, claire.

Thank you, council president and councilors for the record. Claire adams, council policy analyst and staff to the housing and permitting committee. The resolution before you document number 2026-203 was heard in the housing and permitting committee on June 16th, where it was referred to full council with a recommendation to be adopted. The resolution urges the city administrator to reestablish a permitting improvement team within the community and economic development service area to initiate the second phase of the city's code alignment project, or cap two. The resolution requests that the city administrator and the deputy city administrators ensure participation in this effort by all relevant city service areas and bureaus to identify and resolve code and regulatory conflicts, with the goal of consolidating the city's permitting authority, reducing regulatory burdens and encouraging economic development. The resolution further clarifies that the permitting improvement team at the city administrator's direction is authorized to serve as the coordinating lead of this work, including convening an external advisory body with stakeholders experienced in design, construction, permitting and development to provide guidance to the team. The city administrator is asked to ensure that all improvements to city administrative rules, procedures and city code be made in collaboration with council and focus on improvements to encourage economic development. Finally, the resolution request delivery of the following from the city administrator to the city council. A report within 60 days of adoption of the resolution that outlines the cap two project scope, timeline, staffing and resource needs. A work plan within 150 days. Adoption that identifies a permanent code team responsible for code and administrative rule. Drafting a list of city code chapters requiring amendment and a framework for centralizing development, review, and permitting under a single city entity, and assessment of the benefits and challenges of this consolidation. And finally, identify identification of staff and resources needed for this work, as well as quarterly progress reports on cap two improvement work. The full impact statement on this item includes information on economic and real estate development, impacts and analysis, and community impacts, and community involvement. Two people provided verbal testimony at the committee meeting on June 16th, and two people submitted written testimony prior to the committee's action. The general themes of this testimony that the committee heard included highlighting the increased complexity of the permitting process and adverse impacts to project timelines, recognizing the urgency and removing barriers to develop needed housing of all types for all income levels. The need for mechanisms for the city to hold housing developers accountable and ensure compliance with fire and safety standards, particularly for affordable housing properties. And finally, support for the resolution's emphasis on a single coordinating authority focusing on codes that drive costs and delay, and identifying a sustainable funding strategy, and centering accountability and stakeholder input. That concludes the city staff summary. Committee staff summary. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Claire councilor Avalos, this came out of your committee.

Yes. Thank you. It came to committee. I won't add much more than what claire said. It passed out of committee with little discussion with a five zero vote. So I'll leave it at that.

Thanks. Thank you. As the chief sponsor of this, I have a couple of opening remarks. So, colleagues, Portland has the slowest permitting system in the region, averaging 413 days for a multifamily permit, which is nearly double the time of Vancouver or hillsboro. So even though our processes are nearly identical across cities, for some reason, it just takes way longer to move through ours. And even though it's cliche, time is money. These delays don't just cost individuals. The city lost an estimated $700 million in development investments last year alone. To be clear, I don't think any of this is intentional. The slow process is simply what happens when you have decades of siloed operations and code writing, with every bureau having some control, but no one having accountability for system wide performance, cap two is our chance to change this, to empower a team, this team to cut red tape, resolving conflicts across zoning, right of way, admin rules, internal process procedures, and more. It's an opportunity to look at permitting and code reform as a tool for economic development, and to ask ourselves, how will we ensure that permits get the same answers from permitting and development and transportation staff every time? To me, this resolution is just asking for simplicity. We have limited staff and resources, so we need to ensure that we're not wasting time by continually negotiating project issues that should have clear and objective standards. We need simple code writing systems that ensure issues raised that ensures issues are raised by the implementing staff, and that our customers are, and from our customers. At the end of the day, we're public servants, and I hope that in revisiting this work, we're reminded that permitting in the city isn't a privilege that we grant, but it's a service we owe. It's an integral part of what it means to be a functional city. And so I'm happy to be bringing this resolution forward with my co-sponsors, councilors, Avalos, Ryan Morillo and Novick to support the administration's cap two work ensuring that we're not creating obstacles to housing and economic development, but instead being the development partner that portlanders deserve. And I'd love to turn this over to any of my fellow introducers on this. Councilors Ryan Morillo Novick or Avalos councilor.

Thank you, council president. It's an honor to be a co-sponsor on this. It's a legislation I've been active on since early 2021. And that's when we got the task force started. And the big issue was that we had too many. We had a lot of bureaus that did permitting, and they were siloed, and their communication internally was not good. Therefore, that customer experience was shared with the customers. And that's really what was part of the delay, the integration of the bureaus began in 2024 officially, and this is big culture change. It takes a while. So I really think this to me, I'm experiencing us doing oversight to say, keep going with what is already in the code to do, but moving from a culture that you're familiar with to a new culture is difficult. It's called change. It's called organizational change. And human beings have a lot of trouble with change in education world. We notice that the children, they were really adaptable, but not so much with the adults. And so adult behavior change is hard. And so I just hope that we can continue to move forward. I want to thank all of those professionals that have moved from their bureau assignments within the specialty, say, water, to this new integrated team. And I really am rooting for you to continue to become a part of that new integration that will provide more efficiencies for the customers in Portland, so we can start to really improve our efficiency and time. As was said, it's a cliche, but it's true. Time is money, especially in the construction and development world. And for all of those residents that really suffer from how complicated those emails can be. So anyway, this is really about customer service. It's about culture change. And this council, I'm grateful, is adopted the same tone as the last council on this issue. And I'm really rooting for us to continue to move forward. Thank you for all of those that have integrated into this change, and I hope that you can inspire others who have been more reluctant. Thank you.

Thank you, councilor Ryan councilor Avalos.

Candace Avalos: Thank you. We're just speaking to it as a co-sponsor. Okay, great. Yeah. Thank you, council president, very proud to be a co-sponsor of this. And thank you, council president, as well for your leadership on this effort. And to all of the other co-sponsors. So my thoughts on this are that this resolution is building on years of work. It is including the creation of pnd and the first phase of cap. And I think cap one showed that targeted reforms can reduce unnecessary barriers. And cap two is hoping to take that next step by addressing the structural issues that continue to slow projects and create inconsistency across bureaus. For me, this is fundamentally about making government work better. Whether someone's building affordable housing or opening a small business, they deserve to understand a clear permitting process that's coordinated and predictable. You can imagine that as chair of housing and permitting, I hear a lot from people, applicants and architects and housing providers that are navigating this. And just it is our duty to keep improving on their experience. And I also believe that permitting reform is housing policy. And if we want to increase housing production and reduce development costs, we have to continue removing these unnecessary barriers while maintaining the health, safety and environmental standards that protect our community. It is tricky to balance those things, but it is important that we do, and I appreciate about the resolution that it doesn't treat permitting reform as a one time project. This is about establishing an ongoing framework for identifying problems, resolving conflicts across bureaus, and bringing continuous improvements back to council over time. So I'm grateful for that commitment from staff to continue bringing things to us that we can approve. That's kind of the nitty gritty work of government, and so I'm looking forward to seeing, you know, where there are changes we can make over time that at the end of it, we'll hopefully have a big impact in summation. So yeah, I look forward to supporting this. And thank you to everybody for your work on it.

Thank you, councilor Avalos checking councilor. Morillo.

I don't have much more to add that my colleagues haven't already stated. So appreciate your time on this. And I was wondering if the city administrator had anything to talk about with the timeline extension or anything else in the ordinance as far as how your branch of government will be executing it?

Thank you. Councilor, I think this is important work. This is work that the city already had going in process to make sure that we were addressing some of the time frames as it relates to people making their way through the development process. I think this is a great effort to continue that process, ensuring that we are being responsive to our customers, which is our development community and our citizens when they're coming to us to have development permit process. Timing of this is going to be key as we continue to work through this with the other things that we have on our plate. I just ask council to work with us as we get deeper into this process and evaluate the timing of this process, that we have the opportunity to come back to council and give updates of where we are within this process and if it needs to be extended longer, because we need to do some more due diligence on the project, that is something that we can take under consideration. But administrators in full, full in favor of moving forward with a process like this.

Thank you very much. And check last with councilor Novick. See if he had any opening remarks you wanted to give as a fellow co-sponsor.

I don't think I have anything to add to the eloquent remarks about co-sponsors. Thank you.

Okay. Perfect. Colleagues, we have about seven folks signed up to testify on this item. I'd like to move to public testimony first, and then we can do technical and clarifying questions and then council discussion. So, rebecca, can we please call up our first panel of public testifiers.

Terry harris, r forrest for alexander, peter frye, todd gooding.

Welcome, folks. Come on down. Please feel free to introduce yourselves. And you have three minutes. Take it away, terry.

Hello, everybody. I'm terry harris, I'm from hillsdale. I'm happy to be here supporting this resolution. As you know, my interest in this comes from my time with g tac and combing through codes and regs and understanding how those work in the new form of government. So I'm here in support of the health and hygiene of our codes and regulations generally, and thinking that this process is probably going to be useful as a pilot and applicable across other codes and regulations. So that's that's why I'm here. So in support, I think this resolution has the problem statement clear fix permitting it has the diagnosis clear fragmented authorities and and code and regulation conflicts. And the direction is clear cooperation, urgency, efficiency and maintaining the standards that are already built in upon implementation. I've got three points that I want to address to you all, but it might it might be the implementation team over here. You have set up in this resolution a permit implementation in permit improvement team. That team needs a leader, a leader that has the authority and accountability, the focus and the responsibility for that effort. This can't be everybody's second job in the next 150 days. Somebody needs to take charge of this. If it's a permitting improvement czar that you need, I think that might be an individual that you can point to that says this is going to happen. Similarly, the resolution has a code and policy coordination group. Again, I support that. I've I've testified here several times about having a code commission to take a look at these things, but that also needs authority, focus, accountability, something like a code keeper whose responsibility it is, is the health and hygiene of your codes. And this we're talking about the land use codes, the permitting codes. But a guy, somebody sitting there with a room full of the books, working on this stuff all the time. Finally, the 150 days that you have here needs to be focused on the procedures. Not really the substance of the cap underlying this effort. You don't want to predetermine some of the outcomes of the policy choices that you're going to have to make in the cap. This is about streamlining, accelerating, improving process. Internal to the city council has to retain its policy prerogatives. Thank you for your time. Thank you.

Whoever wants to go next, jump in. Oh, sure.

No. Go ahead. Okay. Hello, friends. My name is rabbi farrar. I am an advocate and also the political director of a consulting firm. But I also got started in housing policy as human rights commissioner for the city of austin. Shortly after we did our zucker report, where we implemented a lot of these changes. I'm really happy to hear that the attitude is so positive among the councilors. This is something that a lot of people ignore until it's too late, but I wanted to go over some of the highlights of what you can get out of this process. When san diego did something similar, they were able to accomplish 45,000 permits in one fiscal year that were worth about $8.9 billion. Phoenix focused more on concurrent digital routing, so different phases happening at the same time digitally, they were able to get a 90% first round completed on time. And austin, you know, my former home, we reduced from 223 days. I'm so sorry to hear that. You're at over 400. We reduced from 223 days to a 120 day mandated minimum, and that lowered rents by 7% overall, saving people about 60 bucks a month. So also my personal experience, I've been a case manager in housing navigator at a homeless shelter. It was a motel style. I really enjoyed working in that. But whenever we were looking at how to grow the permits for trying to change those units are more expensive than just building them a new unit. And people, as was mentioned earlier, people don't get paid to wait. So we're purposefully or not purposely, purposely purposelessly building in extra time into this process that wastes money and effort that contractors can't really afford. So I strongly urge a yes vote. Thank you for your time.

Thank you very much.

Hi.

Good afternoon. My name is peter finley fry. I'm not okay. I'm a member of the American institute of certified planners, and I, as a consultant, serve Portland business owners and property owners. And I'm here to advocate on their behalf. You hear a lot from developers, but my experience is actually just with people. Yesterday, a friend of mine, a client of mine, called me and she had finished her and her husband a project in hazard. Abernathy. It took him four years. It's in 1904, victorian building. It's beautiful. They restored it. And they now have a nationally award winning restaurant in it. They were successful primarily because a person at Portland, permitting and development took hold of the situation and helped them navigate through what was a nightmare at times. Frontage, seismic structural occupancy, American disability act, everything. There was no compromise to public safety. These were technical solutions dealing with the floor, the building of the floor to carry the weight of the restaurant, things of that sort. I'm not going to get into that kind of detail right now. Portland has a culture of restoration, a culture of rehabilitation, and a culture of people doing this on their own, and they utilize professionals. But often professionals like me can be part of the problem. And so I am strongly advocating for this solution. I really respect you moving forward on this, and I'm confident that this will help empower Portland citizens and families to develop their property and continue to continue to own their own future. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Thanks for being here today.

Todd gooding, Steve wong, kip silverman. You can go ahead at the table.

Thanks. I'm Steve wong, senior vice president at scb. Todd gooding wasn't able to make it. He's our president. So I kind of consolidated our comments. Scb is a Portland based real estate company owning and operating primarily commercial real estate projects in Portland, seattle, the bay area, denver and phoenix. Here in Portland, many of our projects involve renovations of office and industrial properties. Thank you, council members, for considering ways to centralize the permit process. We hope the city can find a way to streamline the process so it is more transparent and consistent, and hopefully a process where the city can work with building owners and their teams to get projects approved and completed in a more efficient manner. That focuses on getting projects done in ways that make sense and not just flagging objections to overcome. Now, most of the permitting issues we encountered occurred three or more years ago, as we frankly have not recently pursued many projects in Portland, particularly when extensive permitting would be needed back then. While costs are always a consideration, the time to get through permitting had the largest implications. Delays not only have financial costs to us, but to the companies that make up our tenants or prospective tenants. The vast majority of our tenants here are small to mid-sized companies under 10,000ft■!s. When these companis need to expand, they don't have the luxury of the 6 or 12 month permitting times we experience to have the space they needed to grow. These are tenant improvement permits, not larger project level renovations. Causes for the lengthy permit times include permit intake and final issuance processes. Inconsistent direction from different bureaus, sequencing of the permit response and changes required after permits are issued. An example I have is our own iron fireman project located in southeast over by southeast 17th and holgate there after the occupant load. In this case, the maximum number of people who could be employed by the tenants of the building had been determined by the building department. Building department changed their mind and tried to reduce the number of occupants allowed. We spent $100,000 and 12 months going through multiple appeals to finally get an acceptable occupant load. It may be that permitting times in the past few years have improved, although that may be due to fewer permit applications representing less investment in the city. If portland's to attract investment in the city, having a predictable and efficient permitting process is required in order to attract that investment, I should point out that the city has the facilities permit program that's been very efficient, turning around tenant improvement permits, typically in 30 days or less. It is a centralized process, allows plan check comments to be reviewed right away. And the environment program is now in that program. Ironman project is now in the program, but it wasn't allowed to participate until each individual space had been processed. That's 20 or more spaces through the standard process, which took six years. So thank you for your time and the opportunity to speak to you.

Thank you very much, kip.

You can go ahead online.

Great. Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is kip silverman. I use he him pronouns and I represent district two god2. I'm testifying today in strong support of this effort. My perspective comes from unique personal history. When I worked in city hall, I spent four months diving deep into our permitting challenges and speaking with everyone from leadership to frontline workers. Now, nine years later, it unfortunately looks like very little has changed from the outside. Historically, as has been stated, the biggest hurdle has been fragmented ownership and a miasmic approach to regulation creation. Different bureaus own different pieces of the process, and no one had the authority or wherewithal to align them. Even under our new government structure, it seems we have merely replaced bureau managed silos with dca managed silos without solving the underlying structural issues in many areas. We need this cross-organizational team with the authority to streamline decision making, but for big picture strategy and small day to day workflow improvements. While there has been talk of physically and technically consolidating everyone into single bureau, that simply doesn't make sense in and of itself. As a solution, expertise should stay where it's best served. When I analyze these challenges, back in 2017, I approached them through a technological lens. At the time, there was a project underway to force an off the shelf permitting system to fit our highly complex, unique processes. From its very first month, that project went red and never recovered. While I cannot speak to its current status, it sounds like the same issues persist. Back then, it was already $20 million over budget and past delivery. Today, we are likely talking about millions more spent without a viable solution in place. The answers, in my very humble opinion, are pretty straightforward. First, we need to tiger team these bottlenecks within a larger structure authorized to unblock challenges. Second, and from a technological standpoint, instead of breaking and rigid off the shelf system to fit our needs, we should utilize a generic document management and workflow solution. Scripting module components allows us to adapt to our actual processors processes that exist now, and easily swap out antiquated methodologies as things change. This proposal is an important step forward. It aims to solve these genuine systemic issues from a strategic level, building on what's already been started as a senior technical program manager, this is exactly the enterprise management approach I would employ to ensure success, and I fully support it. Thank you for everyone's time.

Thank you very much.

Marty kehoe.

Welcome, marty.

Thank you. My name is.

Marty kehoe. I'm the president of the kehoe northwest properties. We've been in business in Portland building homes for 33 years. We've built 3000 homes, most of them in the city of Portland. And I'm thankful that you're you're undertaking this process. When councilor Duffy, you said it was 400, 413 days. I would take that in a minute. We. Three years ago, we built 118 houses in Washington county and Clackamas county. And in the same year, we couldn't get permits to build two duplexes. If you were me, where would you spend your time and resources? One of the one of the one of the things I'll show you right here is an interesting one. I'll be brief on it. It's zoned r, it's over in northeast Portland. It's zoned r five and c, but the property was never bifurcated. So in a normal world, you'd hire a surveyor, you'd get up, you'd get it surveyed, might take a week or two, take it to the city, get the administrative approval of it and record it. And then you can plat your your property. No. In the city of Portland, it took ten months and cost $50,000. So where do you think the $50,000 comes from? It gets tacked on to the price of the houses. There are 100 horror stories like this that go on and on with a system that has so many conflicting rules, not just with PBOT s and bts, but within bds itself. There are conflicting rules. We joke that every time we have a project, we come to the city and we play 20 questions. One, the answer is no, you can't do that. One down 19 to go, well, what can we do? How can you help us? How can we work collaboratively? And we don't we don't get that. You're the fee in lieu for trees has caused more properties to not be developed, because it just doesn't work. The sdcs the abatement was a great idea, but the reality of it is what you should have done is had said, we're going to take the sdcs and we're going to limit them to 5 or $6000 and leave it there. But by doing an abatement like that, you're going to inherit the same problem you inherited. With inclusionary zoning, you're going to have a massive glut of intake, and 70% of those were never built. So that will clog your system for absolutely nothing. Just all I'm talking about is, are the common sense thing. There are so many stories of projects that have been delayed or completely canceled because we can't get them pushed through in a timely way. If you truly want homes to become affordable and you want to see more homes built, then you need to work with us. And I know some of you, and I've reached out and I'm available to tell you from 33 years in this business what works and what really doesn't work. And I would recommend an office of an ombudsman that would have the ability to step in immediately when we're meeting things that don't make common sense, where we need help like, like this one. Thank you for your time.

Thank you very much for being here today.

That concludes testimony.

Excellent, colleagues. Let's go ahead and jump into the q for discussion or technical clarifying questions. We do have additional folks here for technical and clarifying questions. Start us off. Vice president Clark.

Thank you, council president, I just applaud your initiative and your co-sponsors. This is so needed to continue this process. I'm I'm so pleased that you're doing it. And I really appreciate the testimony that we've heard today. It's remarkable. The horror stories, the advice, the ideas. I really appreciate that. Sharing her perspective. I'm just wondering, I think it was terry harris mentioned a change manager, code keeper. And I just wanted to ask c a lee, I know that you're thinking about bringing in a change manager, and I'm hoping that this is a part of that that can you talk about that a little bit where you are in that process of change management? Because we need so much culture change. You know, I don't understand why we have this. What I think maybe it's mr. Silverman said a highly unique and complex process unlike any other. Can you talk about change management?

Thank you, counselor. And just briefly where we are in the process, this is something that we will be doing a national search on to try to find someone to fit into that strategy and change management role for the organization. Once this person is coming on board, they will be looking at holistically several different key projects that we have as a city. One is the city going through its comprehensive strategic planning process and what that process will look like, and the work that needs to be done internally to the organization in partnership with the city council, to try to help move that endeavor forward. There are some other key projects that I want this individual to be looking at as well. Portion. A part of this is our realignment process. As we go through this transformational process as organization, kind of going on lessons learned and best management practices as we move forward, what should we be putting in place as an organization from a framework that helps us make better decisions, but also help communicate the organization, the changes that we're making and the why behind those changes is going to be key. This is another particular project that is going to be a culture shift for the organization. We're taking aspects of the organization that have been, over the years and decades, been done in a siloed kind of process between each bureau. This is going to be a communication and framework that we're going to have to establish to really break those things down, and really working on the why and the outcomes that we're trying to achieve as an organization as it relates to permitting and development. So projects like this, other other projects, I know the list for this individual who hasn't even started yet is growing by the day, but I want this individual to focus on these type of projects and help us develop the framework for change management that needs to take place as an organization, so these projects can move forward, because we can sit in these rooms and come up with a million different policies and a million different work instructions and sops. But if the culture of the organization is not ready to make that type of transformation, we're doing it in vain. So we just want to make sure that we're setting up our organization, these processes, but also being responsive to our community as it relates to the changes that need to be made within our organization so we can be more efficient, effective, and economical in the services that we're providing to the community at broad. But this role plays a critical plays a critical point in this process of helping us figure out what is that game plan and strategy on our approach and how we're going to move this forward. And this is in conjunction with the d, c, a s and the bureau heads that are running these departments. But so much of the day of their day is putting out the fires. And I want to look at what is the long term strategy and what are we trying to do and how do we build towards that?

Well, thank you for that. It sounds like this process that we're talking about today in this resolution is going to proceed before this person or persons come, but I hope that there will be incorporated into the change management that you're looking forward to.

Most definitely. And that's why I say work with us, because if this person comes on board and sees, we need to tweak something a little bit because we're moving at a rapid pace that the organization is not quite ready yet to turn to, or if there's some other things we need to take under consideration as we are going through this type of comprehensive change, I want to be able to have that input in the process, but there's still a lot of initial work that can be done without the change management process. Just to review of our current processes and procedures, the change management person is really looking at the culture of our organization, and how are we setting up the culture of our organization and equipping it to be able to take these type of changes and implement them and operate and produce some great outcomes?

I really appreciate learning more about that. Mr. President, do you think that we could ask Eric engstrom to come up and just get his perspective on this? I'd like to hear what he has to say. And if there if he's thinking about a change manager or how he's going to deal with this, and maybe the time frame is where is.

That okay. Yeah, absolutely. Well, we have Eric engstrom. Eric couch is not here today. Turns out. Oh, sorry. Okay. But we also do have christina gant here from dca's office. But before Eric, before we turn it over to you. I actually just found out that we. I screwed up, and there was one person, one additional testimony. So I want to invite up the ceo of hacienda csc, ernesto fonseca, to. Yeah, so sorry about that, ernesto.

No worries.

At all.

It seems like the last two times I've been in the same space. Council president Dunphy, members of the council, thank you very much for having me here today. I am really excited to speak about this issue. Councilor Ryan and mingus started this process identifying some of the inefficiencies that we continue to, to see some of them, not all of them to, to this date, you know, from dealing with seven departments back in the day individually as permitting candidates. And now we deal with four. So after the creation 2024, the planning and permitting department. Yes, it is one single point of submission, but we still have to work with fb, with public works, permitting and design review with months and months, sometimes some weight. Despite some of this progress, the time to get a permit in multifamily projects remains the same. I was excited to hear some of the stats in other cities, and I have put as an example, the city of phoenix, where I did significant work as an architect back before I moved to to Oregon about ten years ago. And it's, it's day and night from eight months to a year and a half of permitting. It's a lot of money that we have to carry in interest in pre-development cost into the hundreds of thousands. When you multiply that by all the projects that we have on the city, it becomes very, very problematic. In addition to that, there are some inconsistencies that every, you know, probably every department that reviews plans, you know, sees, but not as much probably as we see in the city of Portland. Every time we submit a set of plans, they do a redline review. That redline review goes back to architects. And every time we come back, there are new red lines, new red lines, as opposed to having one single set, one shot to tell us, you know, what is wrong or what isn't, what is interesting in every city. This is not isolated to Portland, is that we developers and architects and builders, we are the ones that are liable for these buildings. The city is not, and the city is giving us the permission to do it or not. But we still we're still the ones that will pay the price. If we don't do it right. We're still the ones that will pay for everything and every construction defect. So it is in our own interest to deliver the best project that we can. So we're not trying to submit something that wouldn't meet the threshold. In addition, planning, obviously a land use continue to be a big bottleneck. The statutory day. You know, timeline calls for 120 days. The city of Portland typically permitting, ask us to waive those 120 days because obviously, you know, we're not going to meet the six month deadline for for us to get our permit and permit. So really that that statutory rule has no meaning if we cannot meet those deadlines. I would say that, you know, having our our process managers was an improvement that was led and championed by previous council members. But we still need to see a lot more having one single point of contact, one program manager that really understands or is the convener of the many different departments and bureaus that we have in the city, so we can get our permits sooner than later. One other example that I want to share with you that I find troubling is that we cannot have more than one permit at a time. So if you have a mixed use project and you're trying to remodel the housing on top of that project, you can get that permit, but you couldn't get the permit to remodel the commercial space on the bottom because you can only have one active permit per address. That is a problem. Other issues, you know, we have we've been waiting for just a tenant improvement permit for ourselves for about almost two months now, and we haven't seen that. It's just moving a couple of walls and adding one single bathroom. So we have a lot of work to do. I am excited to be part of this, at least this testimony. I was part of the permit improvement task force back then, and I'm hoping that I can contribute in any way for more shape. So with that said, I want to thank you all for giving me a chance to speak on this issue. And finally, I want to invite you to visit the project, the 57 unit project that we have in north Portland on district two. Hopefully, you can come and see the work that we're trying to to complete in that space. Thank you so much, everyone.

Thank you so much for being here. Okay. Councilor vice president Clark, we're going to jump back into some technical questions. We're going to invite christina and Eric back up.

Thank you. Just as they're walking up, I just have to say, you know, long ago I formed a nonprofit to build farmworker housing. And when I'm not associated with them anymore. But when I checked in with them last year and asked them about what they're doing around the state, they refused to work in Portland because it's too complicated. It's too complicated to do affordable housing projects here. So I applaud hacienda for continuing to to work at it. But I just wanted to hear mr. Engstrom's perspective on this and whether or not we need a quote unquote, change manager or how do we move to something. I think that was just suggested sort of a case management for a project. This kind of reminds me of health care. You know, when you go from doctor to doctor to doctor to doctor and nobody works together, it sounds very, very similar, but do you mind addressing this to some degree?

Sure. And I'd invite christina to add on from the dcas office perspective. You all said the right things in your introductory remarks, and I want to just agree with a lot of what was said earlier. The regulatory improvement and process improvement is is not ending exercise. It's it's something that we're always going to be doing and it needs periodic reinvigoration or a shot in the arm periodically. And this is one such moment. I appreciate that this council is embracing that. And it's you know, we have always struggled with some of these issues, in part because of the form of government. And we have a new form of government that allows you all and the city administrator to take this on from a different level, from a different perspective. We've tried some of these things in the past and not been able to get them over the hurdle because of that distributed authority, and no one having the authority to actually make it happen. So I just want to appreciate it from that perspective. Also want to just appreciate councilor Zimmerman. I think you had comments in the recap hearing about, you know, looking at the big picture when we're doing regulatory improvement and sometimes asking the question of not only how can we improve the regulation, but do we need it? And so that's, that's part of this as well. But absolutely to your question, the having a centralized, trained conducting of this activity is critical.

You know, it seems like we need more. It's more than a shot in the arm. It seems to me it's almost like I'm excuse my french, but kind of an enema. You know, we, we, we need something bigger here. Just a shot in the arm. But thank you.

We'll embrace that analogy.

Thank you. Thank you. Vice president Clark, do you further councilor. Pirtle-guiney.

Did I hear you say that you just want technical questions?

No, no, we're in full discussion.

Okay. Thank you. I, I wanted to just jump in the queue to reiterate a few of the things that I said in committee, because I think there actually was some, some really important discussion during the committee process. The testimony that we heard today is raising very real concerns that very reasonably need to be addressed for it to take twice as long or more for a permit to go through in Portland than in some of our neighboring cities is a a problem that we can fix and that we've started to fix. But it's important that we do that in a way that focuses on the process, concerns the duplication, the timelines, the consistency, the predictability, and not on shortening the timeline by making policy changes by through technical justifications, taking away some of the policy decisions on what it takes to get a permit in Portland without a policy discussion about those changes. I think that's really important. And I think as we approach this absolutely critical work, it's important that we do so with a commitment to separate the work around streamlining from any discussions around policy changes to ensure that that work around streamlining is. That folks can trust that process, that folks know when you come back, that what we have doesn't have hidden pieces in there. And I brought this up in committee and I asked a lot of questions in committee because I had some concerns about this. I was reassured in committee that what we will receive back from our bureaus will be strictly technical changes. But I thought it was important to reiterate it here as well, in case there were other councilors who shared those concerns. When we heard testimony previously, as we heard the comment that council has to retain its policy prerogatives. And I think it's just very important that as we go through this process, we get a a piece of work back where we can all wholeheartedly say, this will help to address the problems without needing to dig into policy pieces that should get their own robust discussion. So thank you to the staff who provided the assurances that that is what we will be getting back in the future during committee, and I'm looking forward to seeing some of the solutions that our teams can come up with to make sure that this is a a good place to do business, a good city to work in. Thank you. Council, president.

And council. I think the main thing that we want to drive home through this whole process is predictability. I think as you're going through a process of permitting and development, you want to be able to predict the time frame and your outcomes and what your cost is going to be. And that has varied through our current process tremendously. And I think as we look towards the outcomes that we're trying to drive to in this, is making this process predictable from a timing and cost perspective.

Council president, if I may, I appreciate you making that comment. And I think increasing predictability, decreasing timeline, increasing the understanding of when you're going to get a yes and when you're going to get a no. And the speed at which you get a yes or a no is absolutely critical. And I want to make sure that we're not tweaking with when you get a yes or a no in the name of speeding up the process and the predictability and the dependability, because everybody doing business in our city should, should have an understanding that there's a clear timeline and you will be told yes or no. And if the answer is no, you'll get a clear path for how to get to a yes. If you choose to take that path. And we can

Do it quickly and effectively and efficiently and consistently, while still maintaining those pieces we've put in place that uphold our community's needs and values about when it's a yes and when it's a. Thank you.

Thank you. Councilor. Pirtle-guiney. Councilor. Ryan.

Thank you. Council president is the other. Eric is Eric.

He's out of office this week.

He's at a conference this week.

He's at a conference.

He's out of the office right.

Now.

Out of office.

Okay. That's too bad. It'd be great to have him here today. But anyway, we'll you'll channel him as the first elected official that brought together all seven permitting bureaus and all five offices to finally get serious about this. After three decades of people running on this issue and everyone promising. I have a lot to say, and I'll be careful here to not say too much. But there were two things. Two things that we did weekly, monthly with former bureau director esau that was so helpful. We it took about six months to establish data sets, so we actually knew what was going on and not just wait for an audit every ten years that told us we were bad at this. And so we. That helped a lot. So we looked at issuance to, to completion. And at first it was like watching paint dry because I think the culture here isn't used to looking at data. This is for ucla. And so when we actually brought data to the table, because that's how you do continuous improvement in the real world is you become accountable to that data. And then we also had the draft board be very active. And I recruited a draft board, very diverse board that had lived experience in the field as customers. And then they were part of the the permit task force. So I'm asking two things is to make sure that we have data sets that are frequently looked at all the way down to the line staff that are doing permitting. So the whole team can be a part of winning, which means improving the data sets that they're looking at, because you can find yourself in that data. It's not shaming. It's called a way to do accountability and do continuous improvement work. And so I hope that that becomes a part of it. And then again, that we have the checks and balances of having customers actually engaged in this work throughout which a couple of people in testimony made that really clear. So if other Eric was here, I would ask him directly this your bureau was more you guys were not free of causing challenges in your bureau. Was the fact that you had code clutter. That was absurd. That was going back quite a few decades, because people up here would do a lot of last minute amendments and make our codes quite confusing. And so we just had all these codes that were literally choking each other, which made it hard for the staff to help the customers because they were arguing amongst themselves on which code to, to use. So I just want to hear from your bureau that you guys are all over this code code clutter cleanup, which has been one of the challenges.

Absolutely. From a perspective, that's a top priority. I can also say that data structure you help set up continues on. And we, we give monthly, we brief each other monthly on that same sort of improvement data.

How satisfying it is to hear that something that you started is still existing six years later. Thank you.

Thank you, councilor, if I may. And christine, again, for the record, I work for dca oliveira in the community service area. Yes. If director couch were here, I think he would acknowledge that there is ongoing data enhancement work happening in the bureau. Those of you who've had a chance to talk with them and meet with him know he's very passionate about reform and improvement work. And so that is definitely a lens that he's bringing to his role as director of ndi. And then in the context of the kind of code alignment work, the team is very focused on looking at the data, customer surveys and other information to help understand where the pinch points are in the process, and then trying to validate that information with customers they've gone to track. They're doing targeted stakeholder engagement as they start to scope the second phase of the cap work. That work is happening right now and underway. And so we fully expect, you know, the team to have a package proposal that reflects kind of the real challenges folks are facing, while also recognizing councilor Pirtle-guiney concern around, you know, what topics are, are big enough that they really are their own project and they're not. It's a meaty enough policy debate in and of itself, and probably doesn't make sense to be part of a multifaceted piece of legislation, like a code amendment package. So that's kind of the balance we're trying to strike right now.

What's the body that's now meeting that? We used to have the permit task force meetings frequently. What's the body that includes internal and external at the same table trying to improve this work?

I don't believe that there's a current standing body equivalent to the permanent improvement task force, but there are multi bureau internal kind of code coordination groups happening. And then of course drac is serving in its current capacity as well.

And just okay.

Yeah, sure. Sorry.

So I'm just disappointed that that doesn't exist. I think that that needs to come back because that was really helpful. That's when you started having real nuanced conversations and you would see a person in the city actually talking to a customer, not because they're in a heated moment about getting it done on a specific timeline, but talking about the big picture. And they started treating each other like peers. And you just saw that was the secret sauce that was really moving this along. So I think when the city moved, has currently moved away from that practice. I really encourage that to come back. And I know one time I was talking to the other sponsors that that was something that I wanted included in here. So that's why I wanted to talk about that.

Thank you. Councilor it's quite possible that, as you know, this resolution is intended to kind of re stand up some of that infrastructure that was previously in place and recentralize it back into the community service area. And so that might provide a forum for reconvening those types of conversations.

I think we thought when we moved the deck chairs that things would be fine. And that isn't the case. It just means that the chairs move, but people are still behaving the same way. And so we need to have that checks and balance system of oversight. And that's I think when we took that away, I feel like some of the momentum got lost and the silos within your new deck chair started ramping up. That's my gut. Thanks.

Thank you, councilor Ryan. Councilor Green.

Mitch Green: Board of this out of committee. I think it's a necessary recommitment and it's a good. In the new form of government. It's good to provide a resolution like this that says, here are our priorities. It's related to the broader conversation around how are we setting priorities in and outside of the budget process. We had our little retreat earlier in the year. I think one of the top line issues in that retreat was a shared commitment to this type of building of administrative capacity and building of our ability to execute and unlock things that don't cost us a lot of money, but can unlock the ability to do development. So I think this is a I think it's in that spirit. I was there was something someone said in testimony that struck with me, which was it matters how you do it. Like, you know, the. And I was encouraged to hear your. I think it was kip silverman, but I. I was encouraged to hear your connection. City administrator lee, to the change management role that you're trying to staff up. I think that's going to be an important piece of this. And that connects with the kind of. The. I keep calling it building administrative capacity because that's what it is. It's it's the ability to say, okay, how do we align our codes? How do we align our processes in such a way that just create these like positive reinforcing feedback loops that to, to generate the efficiency we need to generate and to get to. Yes. More often than not. As part of that though, as like in my prior career, I worked in a bureaucracy, worked in the public sector. I've seen these things happen before. And there's a, there's a pretty common life cycle starts with an idea says, okay, we need to, we need to get away from spreadsheets that are spread around different shared drives here and there. Let's get to a common system. And then you hire a vendor and then the vendor is not flexible. Now you're in a change order problem. And there were staff members along the way that were like, I don't know if we want to go down this road. So I guess what I would like to know is from your seat or your seat. Director engstrom, how do you see sort of rank and file staff who are currently doing this work, contributing to the sort of idea generation process and helping that change management? Because I know they always have good ideas. They might not always have good ideas, but I want to make sure that we're not losing the opportunity to hear from them. They might be sitting on a treasure trove of of innovative concepts.

And I would say they have to play a role in this process. That's the only way you can truly understand the, the true flow of operations and the process that we're currently following now in kind of the historical knowledge of how did we get to this point of why we're doing it this way? So I think it plays a critical role in how do we develop what our future will look like. Because at the end of the day, these are the individuals that are still going to have to produce those results that we're looking for from a standpoint of outcomes as it relates to having timely, predictable decisions being made as it relates to our permitting process. So we want to make sure that our staff, who is doing the day to day operations of this, understand that, but we also understand for them what are those milestones or troubling things that they have to go through on a daily basis that is hindering their ability to do their work and be successful at doing their work? So councilor You, I think you hit the nail right on the head from the standpoint of ensuring that we have those staff members at the table to play a critical role in this.

I appreciate that, and yeah, I want to sort of echo support for this idea. I mean, because I actually think this is one of the big things that we need to do in the city right now. I mean, obviously we've got housing production goals. We need to generate economic activity. And if the city of portland's bureaucratic processes are a deterrent to that, on the margin when other capital is not there, that's a big problem. So to me, it's like probably one of the highest target things. So I want to echo support for some of the concepts about a czar, a sort of as you hire your change management person, maybe one of their early priorities is to find someone who's on point, to make sure that we're kind of pulling the team together and having these stand ups, having it be very. Sort of efficient in that process and connected back to, to council in some in some sense, there was, I think the idea of an ombudsman type of function is, is pretty compelling because it does provide some relief for the development community to say, okay, we've been here before, some promises have been made. But, you know, again, I have to make a choice between Portland and some other jurisdiction. So that might be an interesting sort of like, let's take a chance on this, maybe on a pilot basis to say, is there a place where we can go that that provides some relief in that sense might be something to consider? I don't know exactly what that looks like, but and then finally, I just want to one, one thing that I am worried about though, and is, yes, change management has to happen. I get that, but I, but I do worry that I want to know that we're not going to substitute performance management for change management. Like, are we going to do change management by firing people, or are we going to give them an opportunity to, to sort of adapt and contribute and help and, you know, go along with the process because I, because I worry about this idea that let's just purge and then rebuild because I don't think that's good for our city.

And change management is not taking the approach of getting rid of individuals. It's making sure that we have the right individuals at the table as a part of the decision making process that are being communicated with and engaged with. So we're making a comprehensive change that everyone understands the why behind the change and the expected outcomes of those change. So when when change management comes in and it's not looking at the organization saying what we need to get rid of, it's how do we create a more integrated organization that are really driving towards the strategies and outcomes that we're trying to achieve as an organization, and how are we incorporating the council's priorities along with the mayor's vision to achieve those things? So I'm not looking at this, and I wouldn't want to change manager to look at it from the standpoint of who we need to get rid of, it's how do we bring people along in this process to help achieve the outcomes that we want?

Thank you. I think that's going to be a really important thing to to make sure it's kind of consistent and clear throughout throughout all of this because I, I think we've got a lot of opportunity under the hood. Thanks.

Thank you. Councilor Green councilor Kanal.

Mitch Green: Thank you and good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for the presentation. Thanks to the co-sponsors for bringing this forward. I'm broadly supportive of it. I have one concern that I think we can address in the implementation through some questions I'm going to ask here. Before I get to that, I just really appreciate. Want to add to what councilor Ryan said about, you know, some of the turmoil associated with moving positions and change management changes inevitable. I do think we need to support the staff better. I appreciate those have been working professionally for the city on behalf of the city's residents, while in the season of change. And just to double down briefly on what councilor Green just mentioned, I do think this will result in consolidation, consolidation that yields efficiencies, and I hope that those efficiencies are put back into the system effectively to resolve result in faster improvements, faster permitting and not layoffs. Thanks all the testifiers. I'll be touring them. So I appreciate that invitation. I agree with terry harris's point about having a person in charge of this. On a different note, terry, that you also raised the committee. The whole will be discussing periodic code review in August or September. Okay, so getting to the questions, can I think the administrator or staff clarify what specifically the pit will be empowered to resolve immediately versus what will still require future council action or code amendments? I think just getting a little bit of that on the record would be helpful for me.

Sure. Yeah. I'm happy to speak to at least my understanding of that. And of course, welcome one of the sponsors to jump in here if I get something wrong. So the the resolution directs us first to, to reestablish the permanent improvement team and, and have that team put together the second phase of the code alignment project code package. And so that work would be happening in the coming months and then would eventually. I think the intention is for us to return in a few months with the proposed scope and schedule. If we think it's going to take longer than two years, you'd be asking us to come up with a clear resource statement for what we would need in order to achieve that. Appreciate that. It's one of the tensions we're always navigating in this space. And then separately, as a second deliverable, looking at our permit structure and finding opportunities to explore further consolidation and returning. And I think about five months, 150 days with that work. And so the permanent improvement team, full transparency. Right now, it is one person that is that is all we have funded for currently in the budget. But so standing up that team and, and using that that person to coordinate the work across other bureaus and other folks in the city, I could see that person as potentially helping kind of shepherd those conversations, conversations, not leading them, not driving them, but it just really helps to have a person at the city whose job, whose whole job is to talk about these things and make sure all the right people are involved and all the right conversations happen. And so that person would work very closely with both dca oliveira as well as other city leadership as well. Bureau directors, dca, donna paul, to kind of deliver those to work plan deliverables that are included in the resolution. Does that sound right? Council president.

That's that sounds my expectation as well. Yeah, absolutely.

So so what I'm hearing from that is, is largely that the answer to my question is largely going to be answered when we hear a recommendation back in, in pieces over those different timelines. I guess maybe another way of phrasing it to get to the, the underlying question here is when eventually there is a proposal from this team, and this is maybe for the co-sponsors, is the intention that we're going to receive multiple options or a singular recommendation from staff for in terms of how to continue the process, sort of what the second phase looks like.

I'll tell you, councilor, it's my intention to bring something to council for us to not just an up and down to understand sort of holistically where we are going with these things and why some of these things, I think will be very obvious up or down answers. Do we have multiple people writing the same sort of code? Do we have the same sort of people interpreting this code? Some of them will be a directional change that council could have to take, but all of it will be very intentional about bringing it with with not just what people think is the right way, but also based off of customer complaints and experience that we've had in the past.

So, you know, these questions, both of those are informed sort of by the same thing that councilor Pirtle-guiney brought up. I also want to do both streamlining and consolidation and policy changes. I just want to make sure that we're not transferring power from the legislative to the executive through this. And I was hoping you could speak to that council president.

Yeah, that is absolutely not my intention. In fact, really, this is about getting our house in order for my in my perspective, not about giving new authority or new delegating any additional decision making, but rather getting the, the, the bureaucratic structure in place so that there is somebody to be able to say, I'm in charge and this is how it's going to happen. That is the biggest thing for our biggest problem that I see we're trying to solve, where right now someone from pnd cannot be directive or prescriptive towards someone who is issuing partial permit in transportation or in water, to be able to come back and affirmatively say this person is in charge, but not that that intervenes with our our authority or our decision making powers.

Councilor.

Please.

Christina, I'm just going to say any in regard to the code alignment kind of policy work, obviously, any changes to the city's development codes need to come back to council for approval. As part of your role as legislative body, there might be very minor things that can be handled via administrative rules, but I'm guessing the bulk of the recommendations will be in the code space. So that would come before you all, hopefully next year or sorry in the next, hopefully the next two years. And then separately as part of the second body of work around kind of permit structure and organization, as happened last time when pb was first created, that ended up being a package of legislation that came to council, kind of aligned with the budget process, because it is very real in terms of staffing moves and financing, not trying to suggest that anything specific will happen. But if there were something proposed, then that again would come to you all as decision makers.

Thanks and I, that answers my next question. I guess the only other thing to add there is just the more that we're given options, the better I. I feel like technically speaking, we're still the legislative authority when we get a singular recommendation, but especially, especially when that's tied to the budget. And the budget is already proposed as if we've accepted the proposal legislatively, that does not feel like we are the final authority, in my personal opinion. I'll give the example that the tennis center is maybe the best. Like we we in order to make a change, we had to come up with money because the budget was already created around the idea that a policy decision would be made that hadn't been made yet. So that's more just a point in the implementation. My last question I, I guess, and I'm not sure again, whose this is directed to, but are we looking at the desired outcomes being better timelines number of times there's a review cycle, customer satisfaction rating, cost reduction, consistency of code interpretation, or some combination thereof. What are the metrics that. And I'm mostly asking because I believe it's probably a little bit of all of it, but I'm curious how we will measure success relative to today in 2 to 3 years.

I think that that is still an open question. Councilor at this moment. I think that that is part of the process. I don't think we've actually been in a place to define what success is. And I think that this this authority question is going to give us the first opportunity to say, actually, what is the better option? Is it number of permits or how long each permit takes? Is it the amount of money the city is bringing in? Is it the number of big developments? Is it the number of steps? Or are we going to simply pat ourselves on the back because we've reduced our permits from talking to seven engineers to only talking to two? I think we need to hear that from the the way that the system and this you know, I don't want to presume how this permit improvement team or any future improvements might lead. So I. It was a bit of a garbled answer, but.

Council president, can I just.

Add.

Councilor. The data sets that you mentioned got to all those questions that you just mentioned. So we worked that out. We had discussions about what success looked like. We were looking at it monthly. So I actually think that there should be there still. So maybe the council just needs to be exposed to that.

We have a starting point with that for sure.

Thanks.

Yeah, I think I appreciate that and I appreciate councilor Ryan, you bringing your experience into this conversation and and obviously the work that you've done on this, I think there's a maybe this is just flagging for the next time we talk about this, when we come back in a couple of months to have something clearer in terms of like, our goal is to reduce average permitting timeline from x to y for this type of this type of application, I think is, is helpful, even if it's not, that's not necessarily a legally binding standard, but just understanding what the, what the, the goal is. You know, yesterday we had a conversation about home forward and we asked, what is the goal for a vacancy rate? And they had a very specific number. I don't know if they achieved it. I don't know if it's, you know, it's it's not there's different timelines for different numbers to. But it is helpful to understand what the, what the guiding principle is the sort of short term north star. And just to close out, I talked about this issue a lot on the campaign trail. I talked to developers regularly, actually, money matters, of course, but the thing that I heard consistently was that time is the thing that we keep coming back to time and sort of the less quantifiable experience of feeling hassle. And so I appreciate this, this proposal, I'll be supportive of it when we get to that vote. But I really just wanted to, to say that this the testimony we're hearing today is perfectly in line with what I was expecting to hear from folks who have experienced this directly. And I believe that this can kick start a process. I don't think that passing this alone will necessarily achieve that those those outcomes. But I do think that it plus the, the built in check ins that you put in, I think pretty wisely will do that. So thank you.

Thank you very much. Councilor Kanal councilor Zimmerman, thanks.

I'm curious at the we talked a lot about the system, but when we're talking about 400 day timelines, what in the workplace is used to evaluate if individual employees are being successful at this job, at this role? What is the driving accountability function that exists for what is expected and how much time you spend on this? Because I asked that question, as I get a lot of the public is complaining about a lack of access to employees, and it doesn't seem like a good experience. But then I've got employees complaining about required to come back to the counter, so to speak, or having to come back into the office. And so. I don't know a lot about that because in these types of presentations, we don't really talk about the effectiveness of of the teams doing this work.

I think we'll do our best on that one here. Councilor Zimmerman, noting that the person who's probably best suited to answer is not available to join us today.

Yeah.

I could maybe say a few things. As a former development review manager in in the former bts bureau, I was there for a decade or so as a manager, and we track permit timelines. Then we did. And I know they still do within teams. And we're aware as managers of what those timelines are, and we actively manage staff around that.

So do we have meetings like a weekly that say, all right, Eric, you've had that permit for ten days. What are you doing with it? Do we do that?

Yeah. And you know, there's variability.

Why are you at ten days.

There's variability in both the people and the project complexity that makes it more complicated. But but yes, there's there's active management of that and training and culture building and to varying degrees. And, and there's, there's, as a manager, you're aware of when the phones aren't being answered and when they are. And, and, and you get awareness of, of who's generating complaints and who's not. And so that's an active process of, of building a positive culture within the organization. And as kelly said earlier, you've got to bring your staff along with change and. And it's a constant process of trying to improve those outcomes.

I'm a little worried. We're more concerned about bringing our staff along than we are of being a high efficiency organization and meeting the needs of the public on this. And so I'm concerned we've actually because I think the point you're making would seem reasonable to me if we were trying to be the best in the state. And at this point, I just think we're trying not to be the worst in the state. And so I'm not sure that that measurement is the one I really want to hear about. I, I am worried that that what you're describing is the tools you would use in an organization who was already doing well. And so that's challenging for me.

Yeah. I mean, to be clear, what I just described was my experience ten years ago in this agency. I think right now we are in a different moment and, and, and a more dire moment. So I would agree with you.

Because I take these I take these public testimonies and these, you know, various conversations very seriously because they're embarrassing. I'm embarrassed by them. I'm very embarrassed by them. I have said this many times as I watched when the city enacted residential infill, and I was excited about that. And when I came back, I thought, I'm going to look into doing that on my own property. And what I was told is you don't have enough finances to outwait the city's timeline. You can afford the project, you have the land for the project, but you can't outdo the city's timeline. And the only people who can are the developer, the developers. Right. Which was the opposite of what residential infill was supposed to be about, I thought. So that has stayed very true with me. The reason I kind of bring this up is. I'm not I am fully supportive of this, and I don't think it's going to work. That's that's where I'm at, I. Question if we should, you know, zero sum budgeting. Isn't that where you just scrap out last year's budget and you start filling it in from the very bottom? Well, I need one secretary. I need one police officer, I need one car. And then you figure out what the budget is. I'm kind of wondering why we don't do that with our code. Why don't we go and and just eliminate and build from the ground up a code instead of, hey, can you tell us about what's kind of annoying in your workspace and maybe what you want to get to be more aligned with somebody else? Because that seems like a very foundationally a bad start. If the city of Portland were to go far more aggressive, if we were to start from zero and start articulating the codes of 2026 that we'd like to see, that's a really different kind of process and a different outcome. But I'm I'm worried that if we start where we're at and I'll say it's not the start. I know that Dan Ryan started it, but I'd like to have more faith in it. But I'm not sure I have a lot of faith in it.

And to be honest with you, councilor, for that type of process, that would be a multi year.

Oh, and it should be because land use is important.

Very much so.

Permitting is important. Safe buildings are important, but we have gone so far and I don't have a good analogy there, but we have just gone so far in the other direction. And very few city of Portland employees who are involved with it have ever said, I, too am embarrassed by 400 days. That worries me a lot. That worries me a lot. So, you know, I, I do appreciate the efforts. I would love it if we could play the tape and say, councilor Zimmerman, you are wrong. I'm not sure that's going to happen, though. Councilor is the goal matters.

As the director and the one who deals with zoning code, I think I'm in a space where I'm. I'm trying to agree with both you and councilor Pirtle-guiney on these questions. And my reality is, is that you're both somewhat right about this and that we do need significant policy discussion, and we need to do that transparently and not confuse it with this process improvement. And, and the more routine code maintenance.

That's fair. And I think councilor Pirtle-guiney and I offer two different types of leadership, right. Process leader, crisis leader. Right. And I think the question for ourselves is, are we in crisis or are we in a process improvement? I would surmise that we're in crisis. We are 80 out of 81 in terms of places in which people invest. We have a person who testified who says, I do projects everywhere except your jurisdiction, folks, we are in crisis. And so incrementalism to me is a failure. But you're 100% right, director engstrom, that there is a discussion of which one do we want to have? And I'm offering that. I think that process improvement is not the thing you do when your house is on fire. You flood that sucker with as much water as you can, and you worry about the bushes later. And I think that's where we need to be thinking about this.

Thank you, councilor Zimmerman. Colleagues, I'm going to limit debate to those in the queue right now. Councilor Smith.

Loretta Smith: Thank you, council president. Thank you, councilor Zimmerman, for your for your comments. I don't sit on the housing committee, but I do want to say thank you for tackling this issue. It's a big it's a big issue, and I appreciate where we're starting for. And thank councilor Ryan for for getting this started because it's so important. This is this is our book of business. I know councilor Green loves it when I say that, but this is our book of business. And so we have to be good and be about our business when we're doing our book of business. And so whatever we can do to be helpful, I didn't get a chance to hear the whole entire presentation from the housing committee, but I think we we have to begin and continue and streamline. And I support what you're talking about. I understand what councilor Zimmerman is talking about. He's been around for a long time. And and he has a historical knowledge and a working knowledge of what this looks like. But I am rooting for you all. I am thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, councilor Smith. Vice president Clark.

Just really quickly. Thank you, council president. I think councilor Councilor Zimmerman, I think you were referencing what ezra klein talked about in his book abundance. And I think you're also referencing the medical procedure that I mentioned earlier. I just I have just a quick question. When I was reading this for the first time, I was a little concerned about the timing. Is this enough time? The 60 days, 150 days?

I would always say, you're going to need more time, especially for a code, code changes or anything like this for evaluation. Thank you. I would say give us some more time to evaluate this and bring back a solid product to the council.

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you, vice president Clark. Councilor Ryan, last word.

Okay. Thank you, council president. I just want to acknowledge how helpful it was when we had a process where we had a continuous improvement team of four, and that was a hard battle to get into the budget in 2022 for 2023. And am I hearing now there's one person left on that team?

Yeah, we received from federal resources a pro housing grant that are supporting one of the positions for the next year or two.

Okay. I think that is part of the challenge is we don't have that. That team of four was very helpful and they were very artful of herding cats, if you will, and having those positions that were just focused on this, which is what kelly is speaking of. I think when you're talking about a change management team, and you probably didn't even know we had a team like that because there's a lot of institutional memory. It's really sad when I met. So I hope that we have some honesty about what it takes to do this work. And it can't just come from the dais up here. We all know that. But it also can't always come from the folks that are already doing other jobs. So I'm rooting for the c, a, lee and all of you to embrace again, an upgraded version of a 0.2 version of whatever that team looks like to do that cat herding to move this along, because I think it slowed down after the those positions went away. Does that make sense?

Thank you. Yeah. It's my understanding that one of the homework assignments given to us by the resolution is to do that kind of thinking and figure out what can we do with existing staff resources. Right. And then what would be the kind of boosted up version of that that might require more than we have right now? And then presenting that information to you all to, to weigh in.

I hope when you come back, it's about that decision package. Thanks.

Thank you, councilor Ryan. Rebecca, can we please call the roll on this resolution?

For document 2026-203 Koyama Lane. I Morillo. I Novick. I Clark. I Green. I Zimmerman. I Avalos.

Smith I.

Kanal I.

Pirtle-guiney I.

Ryan I.

Dunphy I.

And the resolution is adopted with 11 I and one absent.

Thank you all very much, colleagues. It is. 345 I'm going to give us a ten minute restroom break. Please be back here at 355.

Cobid certified. Okay. We all wish we had our.

And we are coming back. We have eight folks. We got nine folks. Look at that. We're all here on time. All right, rebecca, can we please call item number nine?

Item nine, amend vehicle and traffic code to clarify applicability of ride fees and establish a driver's resource center for transportation network company drivers. Amend code sections 16.4, 0.030 and 16.4, 0.240. Document number 2026-192.

Colleagues. This is the first reading of a nonemergency ordinance. Our. We are not going to be moving this towards second reading today. We are going to get to hear from all the folks who have signed up to testify, though. There's some additional work that still can be going on. But first I need to. Where is it? There it is. First, I'm going to turn it over to christhopher herr counsel operations committee staff summary. Take it away.

Thank you and good afternoon, council president, vice president and councilors for the record. Again, christhopher herr counsel, operations policy analyst and I serve as staff to the city life committee. The ordinance, before you document number 2026-192, was considered in the city life committee on June 9th, where it was referred to council with the recommendation that it be passed. The ordinance amend city code sections 16.4, 30.0 30 and 16.4 40.2 40 as shown in exhibit a, the amendments to section 16.4.0 30 revise definitions used within chapter 16.40. While the majority of the changes are technical and conforming in nature, the definition of conducting business is substantively amended to specify that a trip occurring within the city of Portland is considered business activity conducted in Portland, regardless of where the trip originated and is subject to applicable permitting and regulatory requirements. The amendments to section 16, point 40 .2.2 40 establish new requirements related to transportation network company or tnc driver deactivations. When a driver is, access to a platform is deactivated for an alleged violation of a tax. Terms of service. The tnc must provide written notice to the driver within 48 hours. The notice must include a stated reason for deactivation, the specific terms of service alleged to have been violated, the effective date and duration of the deactivation, and any actions the driver may take to seek reinstatement and instructions for filing an appeal as provided by the city administrator. The ordinance also prohibits the disclosure of customer identifying information to the driver as part of the notification process. In addition, the ordinance requires tnc to provide the city administrator and authorized representatives with direct access to the company's highest level of customer service for the purpose of assisting drivers and addressing issues related to compliance and appeals. The ordinance authorizes the city administrator to adopt administrative rules necessary to implement and collect permitted ride fees on trips that either originate or terminate within the city of Portland. It also authorizes the establishment of an adoption of administrative rules for driver's resource center center within the private for hire transportation regulatory program. The center may assist drivers with eligible deactivation appeals, provide translation and interpretation services, support access to required operating documentation. Offer culturally responsive information, education, outreach, training and related services for hire drivers operating in in Portland. The ordinance further authorizes the use of a portion of permitted ride fee revenues to support administration and operation of the center. Finally, the ordinance authorizes the city administrator to conduct a competitive procurement process and enter into contract not to exceed $1.5 million annually with an independent organization to operate the center, the selected contractor must be independent of tnc and free from conflict of interest. The ordinance also directs preference be given to nonprofit organizations with demonstrated experience advocating for the civil and economic rights of drivers, contractors and workers from disadvantaged socioeconomic groups, including experience providing representation and grievance proceedings, and delivering services and resources to tnc drivers. The full impact statements on this item includes financial and budgetary impacts, economic and real estate development impacts, community impacts, and community involvement. Two amendments were approved in committee on June 9th, the effects of which can be read in the committee staff summary posted online. Three individuals provided verbal testimony and committee and four submitted written testimony prior to committee action. The general themes of testimony included driver's experiences with platform deactivations, including concerns regarding limited information provided about the reason for deactivation and challenges communicating directly with tnc language access barriers, and the availability of translation interpretation services to assist drivers in navigating tnc systems and and systems and resources. Compensation levels for Portland tnc drivers compared with drivers in other jurisdictions, including seattle and denver. Requests for greater clarity regarding the definition of deactivation and which categories of deactivations would be eligible for review through the driver's resource center, concerns that additional regulatory costs or transportation fees could increase the cost of rides for passengers. Questions regarding the city's role in providing resources and support services for independent contractors, and the potential impacts on competition between tnc and traditional taxi cab companies. Perspectives regarding the potential business impact of the ordinance on tnc operating in Portland, and the relationship between driver compensation, business sustainability and profitability. And that concludes the committee staff summary. Thank you.

Thank you, christopher councilor Pirtle-guiney. Not only are you a sponsor of this, this also came out of your committee. Turn it to you.

It sure did. Thank you so much, council president. And I want to start by thanking my co-sponsors. Councilor Novick council president dunfee councilor Morillo, and also thanking councilor Zimmerman, who brought an amendment forward during the committee process to address some some concerns he had heard with the underlying. So I'm going to go through a little bit of detail here because there's a lot to this measure, and I want to talk about the why behind it. So Portland has relied over a number of years now pretty heavily on ride share as a core part of our transportation system. The people who make that system work, the drivers are increasingly left behind as changes in that industry progress, drivers face unpredictable wages, sudden deactivation without recourse or even a clear explanation as to why. And as independent contractors lack access to benefits like health care, paid leave and other job protections, I'll note that they also, as independent contractors, lack the standard means of forming a union to advocate for their needs that are available to employee workers. The ride share model relies on classifying drivers as independent contractors. It, in practice, allows many of the costs of doing business to be borne out by the drivers and by the city. When a driver is unfairly deactivated, they face employment and housing instability. When they make poor wages or lack benefits, or face that instability from deactivation, they increasingly rely on state and city services. The model isn't just hard on drivers, but it creates instability and cost in our systems in Portland, including instability in our transportation system. We need portland's economy to work. Portlanders know that a strong economy is impossible without good jobs, and portlanders know that a working economy in our transportation system has to have a system that works for these drivers. Right now, that's not the case. There are a number of solutions to address, a variety of concerns that have been brought up in this industry that we'll hear over the coming months. But today, we have before us one critical part of the solution, which specifically addresses deactivations and the need to have experts, people who have experience contacting and working with our tnc, our rideshare companies who can support drivers as they navigate the world of working as independent contractors, and who can walk beside drivers as they attempt to contact and work with tnc. We've heard that one of the core challenges is just the ability to reach somebody, have a conversation and truly understand what a deactivation is about. But when you've addressed that 100 times before, it's much easier to do. And we need to set up a system where there are experts who have done this hundreds of times before and can help. So to do that, the ordinance establishes a driver resource center, or drc, which is a centralized, independent resource to support rideshare drivers. The drc is a place where drivers can go when they get deactivated, when they're facing wage issues, when they're navigating benefits and protections that don't currently exist within the system. I'll note that in the past, Portland contracted for an ombudsperson that did much of this work. The question came up in committee about whether this was within scope for Portland to do, and it most certainly is, given that history, that system with an internal ombudsperson was somewhat underutilized. We had a an internal person who didn't have the experience to provide drivers with the services that they most needed. By contracting for this work with the driver resource center, we have seen in other states and cities that we can successfully ensure that drivers are getting those services that they need and truly taking advantage of the system that's in place. I do want to clarify a little bit about what is and what isn't here. This ordinance will not change any rules around deactivation. It does not change the authority over who sets those rules. It does not do anything to change the relationship between drivers, tnc or PBOT, or to change the scope of PBOT regulatory authority or regulatory work. It simply provides a resource and advocate a partner for drivers who are navigating some really complicated regulations and really complicated rules within the tnc environment. By ensuring that they can work with an expert who has done this and knows how to help support them. So how do we pay for that? Driver resource center? As was mentioned in the committee staff summary, one of the changes in the code before us is to say that regardless of where a ride originates, it can be regulated by the city of Portland. That's the case in many other cities and states. By making that change, we actually free up a funding stream without raising costs. Today, the way that our code is written, Portland only charges ride fees on trips that originate within the city, but not those that originate elsewhere and end within our city. Other jurisdictions charge fees on rides within their city, including those that begin or end there, and we have the authority to do the same. This ordinance, by clarifying the regulatory applicability of rides that end but don't begin in our city, allows us to extend the fee that currently exists without expanding that fee to cover the costs. This is not a new concept. In fact, the mayor and PBOT have previously explored this approach for revenue raising, and I'll note that this ensures that the cost of the fee does not go up, and we do not pull any money from PBOT current funding. Those were questions that came up in committee. So to clarify, this is that fee that council in our budget a year and a bit ago raised to $2 per ride. That increase made rides more expensive, theoretically reducing demand and directly impacting drivers earnings, and provided no support through the increases to drivers. We have the opportunity here through this change in how we regulate rides and where we collect fees to provide the funding for the driver resource center. Again, without changing the level of the fee, without cutting into PBOT funding and in a way that has been considered previously by the administration and is very workable as long as tnc maintain the independent contractor model, we can't fully get them to take on the social and economic costs created by a somewhat unstable work environment for drivers. But through this measure, we can ensure that drivers get the support that they need within the driver community to be successful at their jobs. So I want to end I started by thanking my co-sponsors. I want to end by thanking the folks within this industry, starting with the drivers union for your advocacy. You came to us a little over a year ago asking if we could figure out a way to have a driver resource center in Portland, and your patience, as we have looked for the best way to get it done and to fund it here,

Is appreciated, and second to uber and lyft for engaging on this. They've provided feedback largely positive. They have raised some concerns about clarifying that this does not change how deactivation works within the system. It merely provides that advocacy path to support drivers who are facing deactivation and other changes in the system. Other concerns with the system. My understanding is that because of timing and the need to move forward on some other measures, today we're only able to hear public testimony, and I think we're going to take advantage of that delay that we are unfortunately, facing on this measure to figure out if there is some easy language that we can use to clarify and ensure that those concerns don't persist. I want to be clear that any clarification wouldn't change the the language here, the impact of that language, the intent of it or the funding mechanism, it would merely add a line or two of clarity to the end that I described here today. We'll see if we get that or not. If so, we'll bring it forward when this comes back. For the continuation of the first reading. With that, I will just finally note that there is work being done at the state level, coordinated by senator jama. He has shared with us that this work is supplement rather than a conflict with the work that he is doing. We have a letter to that end posted in the record in case there are any questions there. I welcome the testimony today and discussion and questions later, and I would ask colleagues for your ultimate support on this measure. Thank you. Council president.

Thank you, councilor Pirtle-guiney. I'll turn to councilor Novick and Morillo to see if they have any additional sponsor remarks.

Yeah, I just wanted to say that councilor Pirtle-guiney eloquently explained that the proposal, and we're going to hear a really eloquent explanations of the need for the proposal from the drivers that are going to testify. This is a this is a driver driven proposal. No, no pun intended.

Thank you. Councilor Novick councilor Morillo.

Angelita Morillo: Yeah, I just want to say thanks for all the folks that put this together and worked on it. And thank you so much to the drivers union for you guys have been pushing for this for a long time. It was one of the first things you chatted with me about when I first got into office, and if it wasn't for your lead and your expertise, we wouldn't be here today. I wish we were voting on it today because I just want to get it done, and I'm so excited about it. And I again, because I don't have a license, I take lyft and uber all the time to get places when I'm not taking the bus. And this is something that I've heard from almost every single driver, that it's really essential for your guys's rights to be maintained. And as an immigrant to, I'm especially thinking about the immigrant drivers in our community that really need these resources and the language access, who have been specifically and uniquely targeted because of these policies or because of the lack of clarity in the policies, really. So I'm really excited for the potential that this has to really help establish people's rights in that way. And thank you so much for leading us to come to this conclusion and do a lot better by the workers in our city. So I am very eagerly looking forward to the day that we get to vote on it. Thanks.

Thank you, councilor Morillo. I'm also a sponsor on this. I'm proud to be a co-sponsor on this. My colleagues have said everything that I would add. Tnc drivers need a strong permanent advocate. This ordinance creates and funds that. It's a straightforward and appropriate mechanism and it's well worth it. It's simple and more to come. So, rebecca, I'd love to jump into public testimony right now. Please.

First up, we have sam araya, clint hillis, craig bethel, bob casinelli. Sam is online. You can go ahead. Sam. Sam, you can unmute and go ahead. Looks like he's having trouble. You can start at the table.

Okay. I gave testimony about six months ago, I think it was for the driver resource center. And I started off with this introduction. I'm a fifth generation Oregonian.

Oh, and your name for the record?

And I've lived I've lived in the Portland metro area for 69 years. And ten years ago, I joined lyft and it's one of the most enjoyable jobs I've had. I am saddened by the way uber and lyft treat the drivers, closing down. Our only resource for each of those places is why I'm really endorsing this driver's resource center. And now I am the president of fair co-op. A third resource, a third rideshare coming to Portland. And we have a lot of a lot of good things for the drivers because we're based for the drivers, for the community, without being told by the corporate what we have to do. They oversee us, but they don't tell us what we have to. So I want to thank everyone who worked to create the drivers resource center.

Point of order and.

Please say your name on the record real quick.

Craig bethel.

There we go. Thank you.

Craig bethel. I have been working with fair for four years trying to get them here. They're finally here. We we're operating and we're operating for rideshare drivers. This is more than just another program, the drivers resource center. This is a place where drivers can find support, guidance, and someone to turn to when they need help. Whether it is assistance with the activation language, barriers, documentation, or simple understanding of the system, the center fills the need for our industry. I'm especially proud today that I am representing fair co-op, a rideshare company. And let's see. I think I'm only rideshare company here representing and speaking for the driver resource center. And of course, I'm president of fair for Portland fair. Co-op is different. We're a majority driver owned cooperative built on belief that can work better for everyone. Instead of maximizing profits for outside shareholders, our mission is to provide fair opportunities for drivers while delivering reliable and respectful service to the customers. We support the driver resource center because an informed and supported driver is a better driver when drivers have access to resources, education, advocacy, everyone benefits. Drivers, riders, and the community as a whole. As cooperative, we believe in the future of transportation. Should be built on fairness, transparency and partnership. We look forward to working with the driver resource center, cities leaders, fellow drivers that make Portland and make Portland a model of what rideshare can be can become. Thank you for your time, for your commitment to the drivers, and for giving fair co-op the opportunity to be part of this important conversion.

Thank you so much. Thanks, craig.

Sam araya online, can you unmute and go ahead? We're seeing you online, but not hearing.

You can hear me now.

We can hear you now. You can go ahead.

Yeah. Good afternoon, committee members. My name is samuel araya. I live in district three in Portland, and I was a rideshare driver for over ten years before uber and lyft wrongfully deactivate me because of an error on my background check. They don't make it easy for me. We don't get to speak to a real person. They make me take them in english, which is not my first language. I just got reactivated on uber, but still struggling to catch up on my bills because of the time I lost on the road. Even before I got the activated, there was many times I was underpaid. It was almost impossible to contact someone. You get bounced around like a pinball. They closed the chats on you and they don't even understand what you're trying to tell them. Like many drivers, I need help to communicate with the companies and help translate. But every time I need assistance, I have to drive across town to a coffee shop where the music is loud, or to the library where you have to be very quiet. It's hard to get interpretation when you are worried about the sounds around you, and when you don't have as much of privacy. But I hear that drivers in colorado and Washington can go to the place and get support if they were owed money, or if uber and lyft take their jobs away, why can't Portland drivers have their own driver resource center? Thank you. Councilor. Pirtle-guiney, Novick, Morillo and dafi and others for supporting your local rideshare drivers and giving us a place to go and get help where we need it the most. Thank you. I appreciate you all.

Thank you so much.

Have a good day.

Joe jackson, juliana gonzalez, ben gilbert, jordan. Lewis.

Welcome. For the record, take it away.

President Dunphy, vice president Clark, members of the council. My name is joe jackson. For the record, I've been a rideshare driver in the Portland metro area for 11 years. I have driven thousands of trips and amassed hundreds of thousands of miles on these streets. I'm here in strong support of this ordinance to create a driver resource center. Not much longer than a year ago, I was in this very seat. That seat. Close enough, asking for this, and I praised the hard work of our sponsors and supporters who have helped bring life to the task that I had back then. I just want to take a chance here to thank you all. Thank you. Drivers need a place to go to get help, or if we have issues with the tax, regulatory issues or questions, trouble understanding the driver resource center could offer legal help at little to no cost to drivers who are worried about feeding their families after they've lost their job. Translation and interpretation services for the culturally biased, english speaking ai chatbots that dominate the customer service that both of the current tnc giants offer. And finally, outreach and education to the massive and diverse driver community. The $2 trip fee has been in effect for over a year now. Without supporting the drivers that so desperately need the support. And we understand that Portland has needs, but so do drivers. And without us, the new funding wouldn't exist. So please support our driver resource center so that we drivers can get the support we need. Thank you. Thank you for supporting drivers.

Thank you so much.

Juliana is online. You can go ahead.

Thank you so much. Good afternoon, council members. My name is juliana gonzalez and I serve as the executive director of colorado independent drivers united or sidu. We represent rideshare drivers across colorado and work every day to help workers navigate the unique challenges of app based work. I'm here today to support funding for a driver resource center in Portland. Our experience in colorado has shown that drivers need more than just rights on paper. They need accessible, trusted institutions that can help them understand and exercise those rights. The app workers often face language barriers, technological challenges, complex company policies and processes that can be difficult to navigate alone. Through sidu, we help drivers understand workplace protections, navigate the deactivations, access legal resources, connect with government agencies, and advocate for fair treatment. Many drivers come to us after spending weeks or months trying unsuccessfully to resolve these issues on their own. Having a dedicated resource center creates a place where workers can receive support from people who understand the industry, speak their language, and can help them navigate the systems that are often confusing and inaccessible. These centers also benefit the broader community. They improve compliance with labor standards, increase awareness of worker protections, they reduce the misinformation and create a more stable workforce. They serve as a bridge between workers, government agencies and transportation network companies. As policy makers across the country continue to address the growth of app based work, driver resource centers have proven to be an effective and practical investment. They help ensure that workers can access the rights and protections that lawmakers intended them to have. I encourage you to please support this funding and help create a resource center that will provide meaningful assistance to portland's rideshare and delivery drivers for years to come. Thank you so much for your time and consideration.

Thank you for joining us today.

My name is ben gilbert, and I'm a volunteer lobbyist with the Portland democratic socialists of America. Please support the ordinance by councilors Elana pirtle-guiney, Steve Novick, Jamie Dunphy and angela Morillo to establish a driver's resource center for transportation network company drivers. Online platforms like uber, lyft, doordash, etc. Have long exploited gaps in legislation to deny workers their basic rights because they lack status and recognition. Online platforms deny them regular work contracts even though they exercise control over their labor. This has given rise to degrading work conditions. Platform workers have irregular income work. Long hours are often effectively denied collective bargaining and labor representation, and do not have access to paid sick leave or holiday entitlements. Online platforms emerged with the 2008 financial crisis at a time when governments were aggressively pushing for austerity policies, implementing severe cuts to social services like health and education, and making moves to liberalize the labor market. The gig economy promised workers autonomy, but instead, sorry, but instead institutionalized, precarious, insecure and underpaid work for corporations. This became an opportunity to circumvent hard earned rights of workers to maximize profits. Workers are resisting this naked exploitation and degradation of their rights. The drivers union is one way workers are fighting back. It is encouraging that council is recognizing this problem and taking action, however small that action is. Platform workers in Portland deserve fair pay, protection from unfair deactivations, transparency for drivers and their riders, and inclusion in public benefits like workers compensation, paid family medical leave and more. Thank you.

Thanks a lot, ben.

Jordan lewis, registered volunteer lobbyist with the Portland democratic socialists of America. I'm here today in support of this ordinance. I want to congratulate and thank a lot of the rideshare drivers in the area for organizing however possible to them. I know that a lot of the legal pathways that other sectors have aren't there for them. So they've really come together and demanded better, which I think is an awesome thing when it comes to transportation services like this. It ends up being exploitation like, like the business model for a lot of these companies is human labor, and they end up trying to crunch as many labor hours through as few people as possible. And that's why taxi companies traditionally had unions. That's why transit agencies have unions. That's why postal delivery services have unions. And this is an awesome first step. And I think I've listened. I've heard their testimony. It's very clear why this driver resource center is so important. And it's great that the drivers resource center is paid for with without raising rates. That's really cool. But this hopefully is just the start. And we need to see even more. And I think everyone should have a dignified life and control over their labor, and they should be rewarded justly for it. So hopefully we can go even further than this, but who knows what that'll look like. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

That completes testimony.

Okay, colleagues, as I mentioned, we have we were going to hear testimony, and then I'm going to be continuing this item to next week's calendar, next week's agenda, and we'll work with councilor Pirtle-guiney on some of that last tightening that needs to happen. So I am moving this. I, I'm continuing item number nine to future agenda keelan. I'm sorry, rebecca, can we please call items ten and 11 again?

Item ten amend the fy 2020 627 budget to appropriate. $7,150,007 in Portland clean energy fund interest income and other fund resources to restore frontline positions and services reduced in the approved budget and to provide transition support for affected employees. Document number 2026-222. Item 11 adopt a supplemental budget for fy 2026-27 to reduce potential risks to city services. Document number 2026-223.

Colleagues. This is the first reading of both of these ordinances we have. We took votes on the pre-filed amendments yesterday and carried these items over in order to allow additional time for public debate of the underlying ordinances after this afternoon. As I said earlier, reasonable time has already been provided for these items, and I do intend to move them to second reading today before adjourning. So, colleagues, to further discussion, go ahead and hop into the queue. Councilor Smith. Okay, sorry, I apologize. Great. We'll give it a second.

Which ordinance releases?

I have both of the ordinances open at the same time. We can talk about either. And. Yes. Okay. Councilor. Morillo.

Thank you colleagues. I think yesterday's discussion I think, was a healthy one, actually. And I think that upon hearing everything that folks had been saying yesterday, I worked with my team overnight. And I think that there are more spaces where we are able to come to a compromise based on some of the things that people said were their stated interests. So I'm sorry, I'm waiting for my team to send the clerk some written amendments. So that should be coming in shortly and to the council offices as well. So check your inbox. And I will also have a brief presentation just to go over what the new amendment will do. I'll be honest, I think that this is a little bit of a tough amendment for some of us up here to stomach. It's not something that we necessarily wanted to bring forward at all if we didn't have to. But I understand that we're in a season where compromise is really necessary. So I see the amendment language was just sent. If folks want to take a moment to review it, this is going to be an amendment for our ordinance, the one that we brought forward, not the other one. And part of that is because I think that the revenue source in our ordinance is a bit more stable than the one brought in the other one. So that's why it's an amendment to our ordinance, in the hopes that maybe this change will get some other folks on board. And I'm just checking with my team to see where things are at. But feel free to pull up the amendment language and review it now for a moment if you'd like.

And I have not. I have not received it yet.

It was sent to council. It was emailed to everybody. I believe it was sent to the council clerk. Okay, okay, team, if you're watching this, if you can just email it to the council offices to make it easy for everyone, that would be great.

And if possible, also maybe some printed copies would be nice. Should we take a recess for a brief moment to get that or.

Council clerk? Do you have the presentation up? Are you able to share that?

The presentation is up?

Thank you. I'm happy to go through that. And I would also request that my team just sent a written copy of the amendments to all of the council offices as well. But this presentation, I'll go through it briefly. It will go over what's in the language anyways, if that's may I. Council president. Okay, next slide please. So this amendment is going to fund 55 positions. And many of them were found in the other ordinance as well. So I think that there was a lot of shared values in what was being brought forward. The positions that we're saving are going to be in parks, transportation, water, environmental services, fire 311, and the police bureau's unarmed responders, ppass and desk clerks and the office of equity and human rights, along with bhr. This restores the 247 fire and rescue vehicles, and it funds the 3 million in the pbb training for ems, which I know was something that folks for the other ordinance were really prioritizing. So that's something that we're bringing forward. The. We also are changing it to include the blt reserve, which was something that was indicated by some of our other colleagues. That was a concern before. So we wanted to make sure that that was included as well. This continues to include the health care through August for the over 200 employees whose jobs were cut in the mayor's budget. And it directs the city administrator to deliver a service impact analysis for the positions restored in this package to understand the impact of the loss of these positions, if not preserved beyond the 2020 627 fiscal year, the city did not conduct this analysis before eliminating all of these 200 positions in the mayor's budget, so we thought it was important to include that as part of fiscal responsibility. Next slide please. This is going to be funded by appropriating the full package amendment. Appropriates around 18,000,000 in 3 broad parts. It restores 55 jobs in city services. You can go through that list there if you'd like, and it has a transition to support affected employees as well, who are going to be losing their jobs, as well as a restoration of the blt reserves out of PCEF interest. Next slide please. The reason I think that, you know, there are a lot of us up here who have this is not easy for any of us up here, and many of us are not interested in using even PCEF interest to fund some of the things that have come forward. So I want to state very clearly that this is a sacrifice for everybody involved in a lot of different ways. The reason we chose PCEF interest is because it is a one time stable funding source that already exists. And we just found out this morning as well that now PCEF interest has 27 million available to be appropriated, which is 2 million more than was originally budgeted. Our ordinance uses about half of that already accrued total, and our source does not require backfill, unlike the other ordinance. So it's just a more stable funding source. And I think that's really important to talk about. Our proposed use is transparent and clearly defined. If we don't put the PCEF interest towards this ordinance, that PCEF interest just goes back into the general fund. And it's a wash. We have no idea what it actually gets used for specifically. This actually tells us and the public what it's going to be used for. Next slide please. To me, this is a my final stand for a compromise with this council. And I think that it's really important because it restores key city positions and services. Includes ps3 desk clerks, the three critical fire rescue units, and every position that's included in the save our services councilor Clerks ordinance. It requires that the administration consult labor unions and frontline staff for position impacts to ensure that this isn't just a delay of cuts that the mayor wants, it provides transition support. It protects the blt without prioritizing that reserve over restoration of core positions. It does fund the police training. And I think for a lot of us, we didn't think that adding police training was a priority when we wanted to save actual positions, but because we heard so strongly from all of you that that was a priority. This is something that I'm really trying to compromise on, even though I don't necessarily agree with it. I'm trying here. So this also maintains our parks levy promise by funding the parks positions that the mayor cut. And it doesn't keep spend down the city's rainy day fund, the general fund reserve in the hopes that we can backfill it later. Next slide please. I think it's really important that when we told voters that they need to help us with the parks levy, that we fulfill our promise to them. And so this restores the 14 parks positions and some park services that the mayor cut. It ensures that community gardens are maintaining current service levels and prevents or prevents increased fees to them. It prevents extended closures of community centers, pools, restrooms, event spaces, and canceled or disrupted events. It keeps the really critical senior center project by preserving equity in our service offerings, and that was something we heard a lot during our town halls and how important that was for our seniors, who don't have a lot of other spaces to be connected. It keeps the park, the rec leaders at the peninsula park and charles jordan for after school staffing. And we know that child care is a really big issue in our city right now, is extremely expensive, and it keeps the parks community engagement coordinator coordinator who coordinates with 40 community groups. Next slide please. Here is a chart that shows what the difference would be. If you'd like to take a closer look at it, or if anyone in the audience wants to as well. We'll get it posted to the website soon so folks can take a look at that comparison. But the save our services amendment and or ordinance and the other one have different funding sources, but the spending is actually fairly similar. I think we have similar goals in what we're trying to save. So both are willing to spend the same total amount, including transition support for impacted employees. And both ordinances spend about the same on actual police positions. But the clerk ordinance adds 3 million of training on top. Next slide please. So we tried to take what was in the ordinance and included the 3 million in pbb training and 1.7 million for the blt reserve and 1 million for positions included in the ordinance, but not that were not previously in our ordinance. Next slide. And that is the summary that I have for you guys today. I'm looking discussi really hope that we can come to a compromise to think that we really took your feedback seriously on all the things that we've heard in the last few days. You should have the amendment language in your inbox if you want to take a look at it directly, and it will be posted soon. And again, I want to reiterate, these are very difficult choices for us as we all have a lot of different groups that we are responsible to and community advocates that are passionate about these issues, both with staff dollars and with police training and that type of thing. But we are really trying to do our due diligence and work as a legislative body was intended to work under the new form of government. So I hope that you will take this in good faith and really consider it as we have this discussion. Thank you.

Thank you, councilor Morillo. And are you formally moving?

Oh yeah. I should do that. I would like to move this amendment forward.

Second councilor Morillo moves. Is it Morillo one, I suppose. And then councilor Green seconds colleagues discussion of the amendment. Councilor Novick.

Steve Novick: So I said last night, I'm not voting for any more amendments. I voted for an amendment that was a linguistic change that had no substantive effect. But I frankly am not interested in negotiating with council Morillo. A few weeks ago, councilor. Pirtle-guiney and I tried to negotiate with councilor Morillo and her fellow peacocks, and part of the negotiation was they said they had a red line, no money for police training. The peacocks had a strong position that they want poorly trained police. And then they walked away from the table and councilor Morillo kept on using us and walking around the table. So then councilor Pirtle-guiney and I came up with a solid, responsible package with councilor Smith and councilor Clark. So I am sticking with that solid, responsible package. And I have to say that I do not really regard this as a true effort to compromise. I regard it as a desperate effort to save face.

Thank you, councilor Novick councilor Smith.

Steve Novick: Thank you, council president. Councilor Morillo. You did an excellent job of putting up, you know, the differences in what the similarities were, which really made it easy. And I am I'm sitting here. I'm shocked that you put the police training in there because that's so important. And I think you did make a good faith effort. This is amazing and outstanding what you written and I like it. So thank you for doing that. I think that our constituents, they want us to do something. And the gridlock that we have as a result of having a even number council. But you did make a really good effort of bringing some of the things that we wanted. How do you do that? Within 24 hours? You did a great job. Thank you. I like it.

Thank you, councilor Smith. Councilor pirtle-guiney.

Elana Pirtle-Guiney: Thank you, council president. Two questions. We ran through those slides kind of quickly. The first is, can you speak to the funding sources? Is it is the complete funding coming from PCEF interest or are there additional funding sources? It wasn't really clear in the presentation. There were pullouts of some numbers, but not all pieces of it there.

Yeah. Let me pull up the the language, but it's all PCEF and bureau contingencies where appropriate for those funds. So yeah.

So when you say bureau contingencies appropriate for those funds, does that mean that for positions that are in non-general fund bureaus, the funding is coming from their contingency funds. But for positions that are general fund positions, it's coming from the clean energy fund interest account. Or is the breakdown different from that?

Yes, you are correct. And if we want to share slide three that has that outlined as well, if it helps to look at it at the same time, sorry, I went through it quickly. I was trying to preserve our time for discussion.

Are you getting that back up? So I'm seeing. 13 million total cost just under 9 million from PCEF. Does that mean that I should assume that the additional 4 million is from. Contingency or reserve funds within those non-general fund bureaus?

I'm sorry, can you repeat your question?

I see 13 million total, just under 9 million in interest from pcrf. And that's the next year's of interest. The interest that's just being certified. And then is the additional 4 million from contingency and reserve funds within other funded bureaus. Yes. That's the number that's missing here. Okay. And do we have information on whether that's coming from contingencies or reserves and what that bucket of money that's coming from other bureaus was otherwise set aside for.

Let me see if we have that breakdown. If I can give that to you.

Okay. It would be good to understand what bureaus those are coming from, how much is coming from each bureau and what it was otherwise set aside for. I'm also wondering, this is pretty expansive. Has it been through budget review? Do we know that the numbers add up and work and all of the eyes have been dotted and t's have been crossed?

Yes it was. It went through budget review. We spoke with the budget team and they checked on it all this morning.

Okay. And legal review.

Let me confirm with my team but I believe so.

We do have another week.

Okay. I'm looking to our folks in the back of the room and not seeing head nods yes or no from our budget and our legal folks.

Sorry. Yes, it was for both budget and legal and it blends both existing ordinances. So some of these items were already checked previously as well. Okay.

I hear you and I believe what you're saying, but I'm also seeing head shaking. No, from the back of the room is council president. I don't want to step on your toes inviting people up. Yeah. Come on up.

No no no no no no. Yeah. I was saying no to the being my toes being stepped on. Come on up, heidi. You're always welcome at the dais.

Thank you. Good afternoon, council president councilors. My name is heidi brown, for the record. And council vice president. Sorry to leave you out. Heidi brown, chief deputy with the city attorney's office. So we had advised on an earlier version. I haven't reviewed this one yet. We were just in the back with director levine kind of going through it together. So apologies. But we had we had reviewed an earlier one and that might be what councilor Morillo was thinking of.

Angelita Morillo: Okay, but we still need to get the thumbs up from you all on this version. And does this have the thumbs up from budget that it works?

Well, come up. Budget director levine. I appreciate that you both coordinated stripes.

It was well planned out this morning.

Hi. Sorry. Ruth levine for the record budget director. Did look at it this morning. And I'm just I just relooked at it now, and I have one outstanding question. But other than that outstanding question, it's good.

Okay, great. Thank you guys for those responses. I will look forward to hearing from legal and hearing more about that one outstanding question. Once you both have time to loop back with the sponsors. Thank you, council president. I we're all just seeing this. I look forward to hearing the thoughts from my colleagues. I will say I am am a little shocked by the extent of the price tag on it, to be honest. Thank you.

Thank you. Councilor pirtle-guiney councilor Green.

Elana Pirtle-Guiney: Thank you, council president, councilor Morillo, I appreciate your willingness to. I know this is a tough move for you. It's it's a difficult thing to to take a firm hard line on saying, I don't want to spend this money on that specific use. But I think and I'm speaking for myself, I don't want to speak for your app, but it's just been over a month now of a conversation around how do we protect certain funds and protect certain values. And so this is, this is a nimble way to, I think, address some of the where we left it yesterday and say, let's focus on the jobs being restored. Let's focus on making sure that we're consistent with our source of funds and how we can just close the chapter on, on this stage. And so, you know, I, I mean, I think I had similar conversations with councilor Smith. I had reservations not long ago on funding the training. And so if that's what it takes to move it off of that other funding mechanism that we had problems with, I had problems with yesterday. Then I can get there on that today. And I think it's really important that we fund these fire trucks and that we fund these workers who've been watching every minute of these proceedings and just get this done so we can close the chapter on this. I know that this is one time money. I know that we have work to do, but what this ordinance does do is it provides a pathway for the city administrator to work with these, these workers, to figure out how we can hit the reset switch a little bit on how to prepare for the next budget so we don't find ourselves left left out like that. And so I think that's a big opportunity for us in the city. Colleagues, I hope we can pass this amendment. I know that there's still some outstanding kind of pieces to get knitted together, but if we pass this amendment, then I think we have an opportunity to show portlanders that we did have some compromise, and we're going to we're going to step above, you know, individual grievances. I know I've felt some kind of feelings through this process, but it's not about me. It is about the workers. It is about the city. And so I will take my lashings, probably for funding police training with PCEF. That's okay. I can have that conversation. But I would take lashings for another of other choices too. And our job is to make tgh decisions and balance all that. So I applaud you for that. I'm supporting this. Thanks.

Thank you, councilor Green. Councilor Morillo.

Angelita Morillo: Yeah, thank you, council president. And thank you, councilor Green, for saying that. I agree, I think that this was a tough decision for a lot of us, for a lot of reasons, both on personal principle and because of the communities that we were sent here to represent and what we're meant to do. And part of being an elected office is also having to make some tough choices sometimes. And I think that this budget has been nothing but tough choices for everybody up here, and especially for our frontline workers who have been sort of being treated like a yo yo and being told, maybe we'll save your jobs, maybe we won't. And the long term impacts that that's been having on people, I, I wanted to assert again, that this has been through review with owen, and we are waiting for final legal review. But I also want to say that this is a blend of the two ordinances that already went through legal review. So I don't suspect that this is going to be drastically different than anything that we've already seen, and that, you know, moving forward that we're going to have to really commit to working with a lot of these different groups that we have ignored when making these decisions. The to me, part of the reason I brought this forward was because of two reasons. The ocpa is something that I think really needs to be protected. It passed with 82% of the vote, which is unheard of for a ballot measure. And after the testimony from tim pitts yesterday, and a lot of what we heard from leroy haynes as well, I was really concerned. I mean, I have been concerned, but I think hearing that solidified the impact that this will have on the police accountability board. And I think with everything that we're seeing across the country, we can't send a message that we are going to take money away from something that uplifts police accountability to give to police. When we have alternatives that make more sense. Pcef interest right now always goes to the general fund, and maybe there are discussions to be had about that moving forward, but that is the standard practice right now. And so because that is the practice right now, this is a stable one time revenue source to fund this. And that is why I made that tough decision. I don't even like it, but I'm bringing it forward because I really hope that we can, we can do that today. And so thanks for hearing me out and for considering. I appreciate that people are even taking time to consider it. It does mean a lot after a hard week. So thanks.

Thank you. Councilor Morillo councilor Smith.

Angelita Morillo: Thank you. I just kind of want to go over something. So yesterday we approved an amendment that changed the language of where we took our money originally from, from ocpa. And it, it it with the new amended version of our ordinance, it will take money from unknown bureaus, right? That we don't know who's going to have the underspending. But compare it to this ordinance that identifies specifically where the money comes from. We know exactly where the money is coming from. We're not guessing, and we're not we're not giving our power to a bureau to pick. We are the policy makers. And that's what I like about this. So am I correct on this? Is that right? Councilor. Morillo.

I'm so sorry. I was trying to get some papers printed for everyone. That's okay.

So the answer is yes. So I just want to make sure. So so we know that we, we have a clear choice on the one that we approve. And I did not vote for that that amended ordinance, even though I was a sponsor for it because I didn't like how sloppily it was written. But I want to make sure that the public knows that this is important to know where your money comes from. So you can be really clear, and I don't have any problem with the PCEF interest, because we've been given permission to use the PCEF interest, not the PCEF principal. And so I'm real good with this. And I think that people also also, if they're going to consider this because I am considering voting for this, that we make this an emergency. So we'll know that we can get done with this and move on.

Thank you, councilor Smith. Councilor Koyama Lane.

Tiffany Koyama Lane: I wanted to appreciate councilor Morillo for her work on this, and just wanted to confirm which positions. Looking at the amendment that I was trying to bring between the senior center, international relations and ceasefire coordinator, which of those are saved in this.

The senior center project is saved in this. Unfortunately, the other parts are not. But yeah, you know, yesterday went the way it did. So at least we're going to get one of them in there.

Yes. Thank you.

Thank you. Councilor Koyama Lane councilor Novick.

Tiffany Koyama Lane: So councilor Pirtle-guiney and I a few weeks ago said that we were hoping to use using PCEF interest as a funding source. What I did not want to do is be fiscally responsible and dig too far into any source of money that we can help balance that next year's budget. So the difference between our our proposal was limited to $10 million, which I thought was within the realm of responsibility. This is significantly more than that. This, I believe, is about $13 million in general fund. So that's more money that will not be available to balance next year's budget. And next year's budget is going to be a bear. So that is a concern.

Thank you, councilor Novick councilor Pirtle-guiney.

Elana Pirtle-Guiney: Thank you, council president, sorry to be back in the queue. I was still processing all of this the first time, but I appreciate councilor Novick introduction to what I was going to say, which is that this appears to me to be a combination of just about everything. Again, we're we're choosing not to make cuts. We're abdicating our responsibility to make hard decisions. And I want to be clear, I don't want to make any of these cuts. I don't want to cut a single job. I also don't want to be staring down $20 million in additional positions that were funded with one time funding that we have no plan to address next year. And I want to be clear about something, when we take funding that in the previous course of how we fund things would have been available for next year. All of the funding that we're talking about is funding that in the normal course of things, we would have used at the end of this year and going into next year. That's that's the case for all of these funding sources. When we take that funding and we spend $5 million extra using those funds this year, that doubles in terms of our cuts. Next year we have the $5 million in positions that we funded this year that we don't have funding for next year. And we're in a $5 million deficit compared to where we otherwise would have been where we would have been in the normal course of business going into next year. So that 5 million in additional this year becomes ten. So when I've talked about and when councilor Novick has talked about wanting to make sure that we are capping how much we spend, that we are addressing the immediate life safety needs, that we are addressing the positions that labor raised as red flag positions that we know absolutely should not have been cut. When we say, yes, we want to restore all of the other things because portlanders deserve those services and because we should know the position and the name of every person cut in a budget, because we should never take that lightly. Not this year, not any year. When we say that and say we should be careful, it's not because we don't take that lightly. It's because by expanding this from 10 million to 20 million, we don't expand our cuts. Next year by ten, we expand our cuts next year by 20. That's not something that I take lightly, and I am concerned by the extent of this. Again, not because there's anything here that I want to cut or think we should cut or think we ideally would cut, or that I take lightly. But because that cut doubles in terms of its impact in the next budget, since we are in any of these proposals, drawing on funds that would otherwise be available at the end of the year, in the start of next year.

And we have debt service dropping, we have debt service dropping. Councilor.

Councilor.

I'm sorry.

Councilor. Pirtle-guiney.

I had the floor there still, and so I will just respond to that and say, councilor, you know quite well that many people up here have ideas of other things that we want to use our debt service for yourself included, with cip. So I, I don't doubt that we are going to have many plans for those funds.

Sameer Kanal: Thank you. Councilor pirtle-guiney councilor, actually, councilor Clark has not spoken yet on this. I'm going to. Oh, neither has Kanal. I'm reading my wrong thing. Sorry. Kanal Clark Morillo will have the last word.

Thank you. So speaking to the amendment here, I want to appreciate the the conversation that's that's happened here. And I want to appreciate councilor Morillo for putting this forward. You know, I think we're looking at this from a perspective that's been informed by more voices. And by the way, I've mentioned this before, I'll mention it again. There were some people in the room when we were originally were discussing this back in the amendment process during the full budget consideration. And it wasn't everybody. And because of time in the budget process, it couldn't be everybody in public. So it had to be a few people who went and tried to negotiate a compromise behind. I think this this conversation as a whole is benefiting from having more people involved in it. I think it's also benefiting the specific amendment proposal, and I wish we could have done this earlier. But the state has not gotten its act together on public meetings law. So now that that we're here and we're we're having this conversation, I'm going to speak in support of the amendment as the as an idea here, I, I personally did not have all the same concerns. I had different preferences. And I think what my preference is led into was a similar calculation to what councilor Pirtle-guiney made, which is if you can't have everything, where do you spend money and you where what are the risks that you're putting forward? And I think we all have different risk tolerance levels individually, and we're coming together to try to figure out what that collaborative endpoint is for our risk tolerance. I agree with the broad analysis that my colleague councilor Pirtle-guiney just made about, you know, you were were taking risks and we are pulling money forward in time and it won't be available later. I think the question has to be, what's the trade off? And the trade off is ideally where the cost is greater than or sorry, the benefit is greater than the cost. And if the benefit is less than the cost, then we shouldn't do it. So all of these meet pose that challenge all, every proposal we've had in this. And I think the idea here is by using a stable named funding source, we are improving the, the, the process by looking at these particular positions, some of which were really important to some of our colleagues. We are trying to make this a better proposal on the whole. Certainly people can look at the two proposals to underlying ordinances, but I think, as we're talking about the amendment right now, does this make this proposal better? I think for many of you, it meets the the specific things you've mentioned. For others, it's maybe not ideal, but it's it's, I think an improvement from the perspective of trying to come together. And I think portlanders want to see us try to come together. And I appreciate councilor Morillo putting up a proposal that does that.

Thanks. Thank you. Councilor Kanal council vice president Clark.

Thank you, council president. Boy, isn't this interesting? It it's quite a surprise. I appreciate it, at least for the dialog, if nothing else, I had been very conservative in my original ordinance, and the suggestion of some of my colleagues I would have included other things in the pot, but we kept it to under 10 million. I feel like I haven't really had a chance to digest this. I don't think it's an emergency. I do think that generally we are kicking the can and we will have impacts. This will lead to more impacts in the next budget. But I'm interested, kind of interested in keeping it alive and mulling it over for the next week. So I do not want to declare an emergency. With all due respect, councilor. So I want to I want to think about it for another week. And I, I want us to be responsible. And I appreciate what you've done here, councilor Morillo, but let me let me think about it for another week.

Thank you, vice president Clark. Councilor Morillo.

Angelita Morillo: Thank you, everyone for that feedback. And I, I want to respond to a few things. I think one thing that someone brought up was our our ordinance does include some of the red flag positions that were identified by labor. And as far as I see it, some of those positions and what we could save was sort of arbitrarily limited. I didn't really understand or get rationale for why certain numbers were chosen as the limits. So that's part of what we're trying to address here. So our ours includes all the red flag positions. And I think that's really critical. The other thing that I would say is that we're trying to include positions from both ordinances, because that's something that I think. Thank you very much. You should be getting printed copies now if that's also making it a little bit more easy and accessible for you. We're talking about protecting the city from future financial errors. Right. But the way that I would describe the other ordinance and I'm is that we're trying to do it's a little bit predicated on pixie dust because we're saying that maybe there will be leftover funding in some of these things to fund these positions later. To me, what would make more sense is we use the PCEF interest now and then if there is left over funding later, then that can backfill the PCEF interest. It doesn't make sense to do it in the reverse order, because we have the PCEF dollars right now, and those are one time funding dollars. So there's sort of an order of operations here that needs to happen. And only one of them is a secure funding source. Right now, in this very minute, I am fine with having more discussion on the amendment and waiting till later. As long as, you know, the attorneys and stuff tell us that that's not going to mess up our ability to make sure that we save those jobs before people are laid off. That's my top priority. So if that needs to happen, then I would be concerned about pushing this off even further. And I also want to point out that this ordinance also does require a plan. It's in the analysis that we're asking the administration on for on the impact, which is something that I think should have been done long before layoffs were proposed, but that we can we can ask for now. So that's sort of some of the things that we're trying to look at and. I know that heidi or sorry, city attorney heidi brown, would you be willing to come back up? And I think maybe you have an update for us on the legality of this.

Yeah. Thank you. Councilor. Yes, I did look this over. Thank you for giving me a few minutes to do that. And my understanding is that the bases that you are using to propose the changes that are related to the jobs in 2026, two, two, three are the ones that the that were identified in that in that ordinance, which was we talked about unascertained occurrences or pressing unforeseen needs, which are the bases one, a couple of the bases. Why you can adopt a supplemental judgment budget, excuse me. And so given that you're relying on those bases that are reflected in. 223, then I think it's fine. I would also note that I know tracy warren's not here, and we can ask her to come down. I'm sure she's on standby, but I do know that I had heard from hr that if that's already going to be challenging for them to undo the layoffs. And so if you don't go to second reading by next week, that could cause real problems. So but I'll see if tracy can come down. If you'd like to get more information on that.

Thank you, attorney heidi, for the clerk. I also want to announce that there was a scrivener's error, and we emailed you the language as well, but I'll just read it out loud in section. I think it's 15. Sorry. I'm looking at a small screenshot here. The number was 5,826,002, but should be 5,491,000. And I just wanted to verify that that's corrected.

I believe those numbers are reversed. It was 5,491,002 and has been updated. The hard copies that were just handed out were updated to 5,826,002.

Its section 5.8, and I believe it's. Sorry. I think kristen johnson emailed the amendment to you.

Are we verifying numbers or verifying the what is in the clerk's.

I think I'll sidebar with you to correct the scrivener's error and just make sure we have the correct one, and I'll double check to make sure the printed copy we just received has the correct numbers as well. I don't want to add to any confusion. It's it shouldn't be a huge deal, but just a quick number change. But colleagues, I, I am really concerned about our inability to pass an amendment and get this done today because I am worried that if we don't do this in a timely manner, like we're running up against the clock, this is genuinely not an attempt to trick anyone. As you can see, my team put together a million charts to make this as clear as possible. They were poor, poor them. They were rushing and trying to help as much as they could to make it clear, and I'm very grateful for them. So I would consider if we could vote on this today. I would like to push for that so that we can get to a second reading on on something.

Agreed. Councilor. I intend to move us towards a vote on the amendment, but not on the underlying. Okay.

A point of personal privilege. If I may, I apologize. I have a town hall scheduled for 6:00 tonight and didn't learn until just a few hours ago that this meeting was extended and I need to leave. I just wanted to share with everybody why it is that I have to go.

Thank you, councilor Pirtle-guiney. Apologies for the late schedule change. Councilor aye, Morillo. Are we still waiting on that, that or should we move to councilor Kanal for this?

Sameer Kanal: Let's move to councilor Kanal and I can sidebar or perhaps. Yeah, yeah, I'll figure this out.

I will come back to you before we are moving to a vote.

And I think the printed copy you have has the scrivener error. So I'm getting a new copy sent just to make sure you have the correct one. Thank you.

Okay. Councilor Kanal.

Sameer Kanal: Thank you. I'm not sure if she's leaving right now, but I just want to first appreciate councilor Pirtle-guiney conflict. I also have a conflict that I'm trying to get pushed back a little bit, so I should be good, but just wanted to flag it. And at the risk of sounding contradictory to that point, I, I did want to respond to councilor Smith's point. Obviously, I've been a a stickler when it comes to emergency ordinances and their use. I would be comfortable if this was an emergency. I, I think that that that's the appropriate thing that saves us one week. To be clear, non emergency budget ordinances don't have a 30 days after is is what I've been told. And so that that would apply here too. We know it applies to the full budget. But but either way it would save us the week. So I'm open to that conversation. If there's something that can get to nine votes. And I just wanted to flag that, I wouldn't be opposed to that for anybody. Assumed I would be. And I, I think I can leave it there. Thanks.

Thank you. I'm going to limit debate to the amendment to those in the. Q councilor Novick and councilor Avalos will have the last word on the amendment. Councilor Novick.

Steve Novick: Yeah, I just wanted to remind people that our proposal had PCEF interest as a possible funding source. It said that it said look to under projected underspending, but it also listed piece of interest as a funding source. So there's there's no argument that we were relying purely on un predictable sources of money because it had that predictable sources of backup.

Thank you. Councilor Novick councilor Morillo.

Angelita Morillo: Well, councilor Novick, while you're looking at the past, I am trying to get us moving ahead forward. So I would like to call the vote. Well, I know well, okay, I see councilor Avalos really has something she wants to say, but can I call the vote right after she speaks?

After the.

Okay, she'll call the vote.

It has been limited. Debate has been limited, and we are moving to a vote after councilor Avalos. Go ahead. Councilor Avalos.

Candace Avalos: All right, thank you. I waited till the end because I just wanted to kind of see where the temperature was and get a sense for how colleagues were feeling. And honestly, I feel really encouraged by the discussion that we just had. I think that ultimately, whatever your issues are with previous negotiations or proposals or debates, I hope that we do not lose sight, colleagues, of what we're voting on, because these are workers with families who are at high risk of losing a job. This is about essential services that portlanders might lose, parks positions that serve some of our most disadvantaged communities, critical fire rescues. I also don't love everything in this compromise, but like Morillo said, that's why it's compromise. Maybe you said it, councilor Greene. That's kind of the nature of compromise, right? Like that. It's not always what we all love. And I think we've spent many, many weeks trying to come to a compromise, trying to propose different things. And I'm really, again, encouraged that this has finally broken through that stalemate. Because again, I think also I'll just thank the portlanders who testified yesterday, because I think they really helped lay out the consequences very clearly. And I think we have an available source. To me, it's a no brainer. I'm very grateful for your leadership, councilor Morillo I'm really grateful to everybody who has really leaned in and decided that what is more important is not our disagreements, our interpersonal problems. That does not matter. What matters is portlanders that we're going to serve by including these extra services. And I really urge everyone to support this amendment. Thank you.

Thank you, councilor Avalos. Rebecca, can we please call the roll on Morillo one? Oh, councilor.

Quickly do a point of information.

Absolutely.

Councilor Kanal council president, can you just clarify, we're not voting on the underlying ordinance right now. We're just voting on whether to do the amendment that councilor Morillo put forward.

Angelita Morillo: Correct. We are voting on aye, Morillo one.

Thank you.

Aye, Morillo one two document 222026-222.

So exactly. Yep. The vote for aye, Morillo one for ordinance document number 2026-222 Koyama Lane yes.

Morillo. Aye, Morillo.

Novick no.

Clerk yes.

Green I.

Zimmerman I.

Avalos I.

Smith I don't often like to be on a different side of doctor haynes. I've been following him for years and we've never been on opposite sides, so I happily vote yes. And thank you, councilor Morillo.

Angelita Morillo: Kanal. I pirtle-guiney absent Ryan. I Dunphy. I and the amendment is approved with ten i1a and one absent.

Excellent colleagues. Now to the debate of the underlying bill. This is still our first reading of both ordinances. There is no additional voting today. And when we're done discussing this, it moves to second reading. They both will move to second reading. So, councilor Avalos, are you in the queue? So okay. Thank you. Councilor Kanal.

Sameer Kanal: Thank you, council president. I think I'm nobody else is in the queue. So I might be doing this a little prematurely, but I didn't want to end this without mentioning, you know, yesterday, councilor Koyama Lane and I proposed an amendment that would restore three positions. It was divided. All three failed six six. One of those three positions is already in ordinance 2026-222. And given that we're having the conversation and talking about both ordinances, I. I would like to propose an amendment to 2026-222 that restores the other two positions. So to be clear, the three positions that were brought up yesterday. One was the senior center position. One was the. International relations position. And I believe the senior center position is the one that's that's in there. As it stands. And we're, by the way, getting this printed out and sent your way. And then there's a cease fire position, which, as was mentioned yesterday, and I I'd love to have if ca lee could speak to that, I would love to have that spoken to. Again, just to clarify what the request was from administration, which again, we heard it was requested by administration yesterday, but would love to have the conversation about adding back the international relations position as well as the cease fire position to these two. Ordinance. 2026-222 councilor Koyama Lane, I believe has the actual amendment, and we're getting that. I'm not sure where that's at in terms of the physical chamber, the email, but I just wanted to mention that. And if it is ready for. I'll move it as soon as it's ready to be moved.

It's being passed out right now. Right now.

Okay, then I will move formally. Koyama Lane Kanal one to ordinance 2026-222.

Councilor Kanal moves. Koyama Lane. Kanal. Is it? Would it be one? You only have a one.

That was to the other ordinance. Oh you're right councilmember. However you'd like.

Thank you very much. Councilor. Kanal moves. Koyama Lane Kanal one is there a second? Second councilor Koyama Lane seconds the amendment. Okay, colleagues, discussion to the amendment.

Yes.

Councilor Smith.

Loretta Smith: So cease fire. It is my understanding. Is anyone here from the budget office? It's my understanding that cease fire was funded not only fully and we restored cease fire fully, but we also put it in permanent budget. So I'm not sure where the straggler. Position comes from. Is it something that they want to add in addition to what they have, because they got funded fully and I'm not willing to give them anything else? So this is this is something new. This is not something that was lost because they didn't lose anything. They got everything restored. So I'm not sure where the cease fire came from.

Council president.

Absolutely.

Councilor Kanal. Yeah. So this was a cut position in the mayor's proposed budget that was not restored in our budget conversations. I know, I don't know if that any who's there from the budget office to speak to, but I do know that we have a lee here. We also have the director of community safety, stephanie howard, on the call, so they can speak to that from the operational side, if you'd like.

The question that I would ask councilor Kanal is how much money did they turn over? How much money did they have that was unused? And I think they got a lot of money that was unused from the from the department of public safety. They don't need this. They can restore it with the money that they have. Cease fire already has money that they did not use. So they can use that.

If council would like. I know we have stephanie howard online to kind of speak to the program itself and kind of break down the request as well.

Thank you so much. City administrator stephanie howard, director of community safety, for the record, and I apologize. I'm traveling right now, so I'm off camera. But to speak to the question, councilor Kanal is correct. We did lose this position in addition to some small cuts in the in the budget, but the funding was made ongoing. As you noted, councilor Smith, we did not have carryover in the cease fire program at all. So there was not any unspent funding that would support this position. Not true. And I'm sorry.

I talked to cease fire yesterday. I talked to cierra and she said there was 300,000 that I didn't use. So I know they have 300 000 in the budget.

No, I we I'm happy to provide additional information, but I don't think that is that doesn't that doesn't mean that that money wasn't accounted for elsewhere. I do not we did not have a $300,000 underspend at cease fire.

There was an underspend because they didn't spend all of their money. And so that is an underspend when they didn't spend their allotted contractual monies, there is an underspend.

Yes. Councilor. But the the funding that was not spent by one contractor. We have repurposed that in amendments to provide gap filling.

I think you need to talk to your staff. You need to talk to your staff.

Yes, ma'am. I but I will just say this. This position has been requested because yes, it was lost. It was not restored. And we have come you know, we're working through the layoff process with that employee who we hate to lose, and that if we can restore that position, it will avoid some of the sort of down stream effects to other programs like the office of violence prevention in, in the context of bumping. And so because this opportunity came forward and I'm not sure that we fully.

Director howard, you don't even know when you're winning. You got fully funded and you're in permanent budget. Come on.

I apologize, councilwoman. I'm trying to just answer the questions I was asked.

Okay. Okay, okay.

Thank you. Thank you, councilor Smith. Councilor Koyama Lane.

Tiffany Koyama Lane: Thank you, council president councilor Smith, from what has been explained to me, I was told that we thought we fully were sold, restored, cease fire. But we didn't. We did not. And that this fte, we did cut it in our budget and that that we did not realize that that happened. And after the meeting yesterday, I've had conversations with kia lee that there was some confusion. And that is something that was brought to him that he did approve to be requested, because we did cut that. Are you able to speak more to that?

Yes, I can, I know we had the conversation on it, but I can also have a jonas come and talk about the budget in general as it relates to cease fire. But staff came to me as it relates to a bumping issue due to not having an adequate funding for the role, and as could conversations be had as it relates to bringing back a role so we could avoid the bumping issue that we have in cease fire.

No, nothing to that. And I just I guess I'd say for the record. Jonas biery chief financial officer I agree with what stephanie howard said regarding the budget. As far as no carryover and keeping that filled for this year, that's accurate.

Sally. We all had to take a haircut everywhere. Everybody don't get their fully funded back. It's one she got. She needs to trim her budget. She got more than enough money. She had millions of dollars that she had from 25, 26 that she turned over to 26, 27. So I know she got some money and we need to stop piecemealing this stuff together. And we also got to know when we're winning and cease fire is winning. If that's the case, I'm going to go back and get the police's $20 million. The other another $15 million that was taken off. If we're going to start doing that. Do y'all want to I can put an amendment in for the police. They lost 15 other million dollars. Are you going to fund that because they lost it? We're in a cut budget. The mayor had to cut $170 million, and we can ready to fight over $197,000. No we're not.

Councilor thank you, councilor Smith. Councilor Zimmerman.

Eric Zimmerman: May have lost the thread.

Fair enough.

Give me one second. Oh, here's my concern. I find this a strange request from the administration, because I'm pretty sure to expect, based on the rest of two, two, two, that the mayor and the administration are going to blast this council. So do not ask me for another one. I find that very strange. So. In the midst of all of these positions and the. I don't love governing by position in a budget process, I find that generally inappropriate. And so we're down at the. We're in the 11th, second of the 11th minute of the 11th hour kind of thing. I mean, this thing expired on June 30th, and here we go. So I am hearing the request, but I'll just tell you from a supplementary budget perspective, I know that we have some staff here who perhaps are not very used to those, but councilor Smith and I are used to them because Multnomah county does a supplementary budget all the darn time. Every time they change a position here and there, and they bring those in and they do it in an appropriate manner. But it's been added into these two larger ordinances by council, and I find that strange. If you are fully intending that you have made a mistake, then you're not going to execute all the funds in this quarter anyway. And I think you can bring a one off and do the thing, but I, I don't this this does not seem like the right appropriate point. And I do think that councilor Smith has made some ongoing permanent funding cases here that resonate with me as well. Thank you.

Thank you, councilor Zimmerman. Councilor Kanal.

Sameer Kanal: Yeah, so first off, thank you, director howard, for being here and for explaining what happened here. I just wanted to first ask the council president to, to stick with the the rules of, of conduct that we have here internally. But secondly, I just wanted to point out that even if, hypothetically, there's a money issue in terms of like, we don't want to put more money towards this or not, like I, I recognize that that might be a conversation. There's still a position authority issue and we're losing the position authority. So we would have to restore that even if they were to use existing dollars for this position. And so this this doesn't just stop at that. It obviously gives them money as well, this amendment. But I it's not as though there's just flexibility we would need to, to actually authorize the creation of that position. And I appreciate the the connection to the office of violence prevention that was raised as well by, by director howard. The second thing I want to bring up is, as of right now, this amendment is two positions together. The other is the international relations program. And, you know, this is something that many of us have talked about supporting. This is something that when we had the sister city reception, some of you spoke at that in favor of this work. It's something that we talked about at the at the rose festival when we had a dragon boat race against the city council from kaohsiung, taiwan. You know, this this relationship that's that's curated and, and held within our city government by the international relations program at the office of government relations. So I would hope that the colleagues would consider that. I think relative to the amount of money that is brought into this city, not just I'm talking economic activity, but even just the tax receipts associated with international travel, that we should be actually not merely holding the line and trying to save this position, but investing further in our international relationships. That's not in front of us today, but the idea of coming back to where we are presently and keeping our international relations program whole is in front of us. So I'd ask for your support on that.

Thank you. Councilor Kanal councilor Avalos.

Candace Avalos: Thank you. I guess I'm just trying to understand if the disagreement is on the facts of whether this money is needed or on the value of whether we should fund these positions. What I understood as it relates to the cease fire situation is that they received their program was kept whole. They got money for their programing, but they lost the position and the concern and why you raised it and asked us to fix it is because there's money for a program, but no one to do the program. Say it on the record.

Correct.

Okay, so that's the situation with the cease fire thing, right? Okay. So maybe councilor Smith, help me understand what your position is. I'm just trying to suss out like where the disagreement is. So if I can ask you directly.

Well, the issue is that I have if we have two ordinances, then the smart thing would have been to tell both sides about it. So there must have been an assumption that that you all could get it done and we couldn't. So I don't care about this, this we we've, we've, we've gone so far. And if this was so important, why didn't councilor Morillo put it in her in her to put everything together?

I'm doing the best.

I can. I know, but why why why didn't you all add it to hers? I mean, it just it just. It's too much. It's just too, too much right now. Okay? I'm not going to support it. Y'all can support if y'all want to. I'm not supporting it.

Okay. Thank you for your answer. I just trying to get clarity on what's going on. And it sounds like another concern that has, is being raised is this perception that some people are getting information about what needs to be changed and not.

So we didn't know that.

Is that is that something that we can I don't know how to we can't fix the past, but it sounds like that is a procedural thing we should discuss, because I think part of it is that we're all building these budgets with our own offices, with disparate information, and I think that's what adds to this confusion. And then so if I, as a councilor, like, care about a certain program and I'm trying to save it in budget, then I'm going and I'm talking to them, I'm doing all this stuff. And so I think that's why the information doesn't get to everybody, because we're all having to advocate for our things. But I think that's not our fault. I think that's a system problem of making sure that there's transparency of like what? Well, first of all, if you're making an ask because something needs to get fixed that is correct, that you should be making that ask to the full council. So I'll just say that I do think that we need to fix that, because it does give this perception that is unnecessary. It's obviously creating conflict. And it doesn't have to be because if you have an ask, you should tell the whole council to fund that. So I'll leave that at that. But in general, I think I am concerned about the fact that there's dollars for a program, but no one to administer it. So I'm interested in supporting that as it relates to the international relations position. You know, not something I advocated for, not something that is at the top of my list. I understand the why and why. You know, you this amendment is seeking to replace it. I think the answer to why wasn't it included? I think it's just what I said, right? It's just like everybody's just kind of doing their own thing. We're all trying to piece things together. And again, that is a systems issue. And so I don't. So I appreciate that we're all working through these silos and doing our best. And so I wouldn't I'm not going to put that on these councilors. But again, just wanted to get clarity on what the disagreement was. If it was a fiscal issue or if it was like, we don't want to fund this position. Sounds like more on the fiscal side, more on the process side. So just wanted to get clarity. I don't have a closing statement. That's all I got to say.

Thank you, councilor or councilor Avalos. I'm limiting debate on the amendment to those who are currently in the queue. Councilor Koyama Lane.

Tiffany Koyama Lane: Thank you, councilor Avalos. Your line of questioning was really helpful. I understand that this is messy. All of this has been messy. Instead of we're collaborating in real time in front of everyone. This really has just been trying to save some positions. I think both of these positions are important. And honestly, councilor Smith, I have been taking a cue from you and your tenacity, and I've been trying to be really tenacious about this because I think these are important. And so I'm trying. It might likely won't pass, but here we go.

And councilor Koyama Lane a technicality. The the draft that the clerk just received is slightly more than a scrivener's error of an updated draft. We'd like you to formally withdraw the amendment and then reintroduce it, if you could.

Okay. Formally withdraw and reintroduce Koyama Lane Kanal one. Great. I think because.

It second it.

There we go. It notes the senior center in their. Okay. Yeah.

Does that work? Are we good? Oh, heidi doesn't like what I did.

I think I think paragraph you had an additional 14 that was in the original one.

Hey adam the microphone's not on at the table. You can say what you want. It's just the whole thing turned on.

There we go. Okay. Again, heidi brown for the record. So. Councilor Koyama Lane you had and Kanal you had you had added in paragraph 14, which explained why you need the parks and recs recreation center senior center project. However, I think that was already adopted in the amendment from councilor Morillo that you just all did. So I don't know that you need. 14. You could just.

Councilor Kanal if it's okay with you, I'd like to withdraw this amendment.

Oh, I just meant the one. That one paragraph is all.

Okay.

Councilor is withdrawing the amendment for now. All right. Thank you. Both colleagues, further discussion of the underlying. Councilor Zimmerman.

Eric Zimmerman: Thanks. Restoring some of these positions, police and public safety and fire has been the priority for me, and I think that. Between the two groups and those of you who sponsored these, you've created some interesting approaches. And I appreciate that. Councilor Morillo placed some more public safety into the 2 to 2. I am like councilor Clark alluded to earlier, going to think through this first reading about what this would look like, because on the one hand, when council president Elana pirtle-guiney and Steve Novick changed out the funding source of their own, well, not you, president, but of their own ordinance, I think it really created a a funding from where question for me. And that's problematic. And while I may not prefer the one that was written by the peacocks of this organization, I do appreciate that you've at least identified a funding source. I don't think it's the most responsible funding source, but it is at least a funding source. And I've never passed a budget before, or any budget item where we didn't actually know where the money was coming from. And so while a couple of councilors have continued to try and say that this was some sort of linguistic thing to try and catch another councilor in a lie, I think they've actually introduced a poison pill, and I'm very concerned about that. And so I'm going to wrestle with this. I found one of the explanations that was given by staff about where this could be funded in the future to be inadequate. And instead of trying to. Wrestle either budget or legal authority on the dais, I'm going to use my time to to have a private staff meeting with with the budget office, with the attorney's office, to better understand what the outcomes of these two different ordinances are. So I have appreciation to the council who brought today's amendment. I think you made it a better thing, even though it's a larger thing, which is a concern for me because of the out year use of of the interest which has been used in general fund, I do think there will be a larger hit in the next year, but I think it was a responsible compromise package, and I guess a few of us have been now on the. Well receiving end of being told one thing, to then see a sponsor do another thing. And I was watching that in real time yesterday in disbelief. And now it has has put me quite literally on the line. And I'm I'm glad my name was not on either one. So I'm going to spend my spend my week considering what is most appropriate to restore funding public safety positions and make sure that we don't become a city that has not got shifts being filled by police, that we are not a city that doesn't actually send our young officers to training to make sure that we are a community who continues to respond to all sorts of calls, critical calls, lower ranked calls, that we are a place that has trained police officers, trained ps3's and the staff behind them to help them do their job. So. This has been a tough one to watch. Some of you, I think, make the hamburger and then burn it on the grill and forget about it and screw it up. But here we are. So I hope, I hope that I hear some good stuff from the budget office and from the attorneys on the outcomes of some of these amendments and what actually is being funded. Because right now, like I said, I've never had a budget document that actually doesn't describe where its funding its stuff from. And so two, two, three right now is a very concerning one for me. So I requested staff assistance on that. Thanks.

Thank you, counselor Zimmerman. Councilor. Novick.

Thank you, mr. President. Counselor Zimmerman just responded. I want to point out that our proposal never said money will come from cbpa under spending. We couldn't do that because we couldn't guarantee there'd be cbpa spending and we couldn't we weren't going to cut the budget of the cbpa because that would be against the charter. Our measure started off by saying underspending, if it exists. And yes, take a look at the cbpa and then the peace interest as as a backup to that and all that the amendment yesterday did was say underspending if it exists, it didn't call out one potential source of underspending. So substantively, there was no there was no substantive change made yesterday, just removing the the fact, just changing the fact that instead of one reference to one potential source of underspending, it refers to all general fund underspending in general. So. And again, it always had self interest as a backup.

Thank you, councilor Novick. Thank you. Councilor Novick. Councilor. Morillo.

Thank you everyone. I'm actually genuinely confused now about what people are mad about. So I hope we can discuss that later, because I think that we have come a long way in the past few weeks from the original gam, one amendment that was introduced to negotiating that, to negotiating all of these ordinances. And again, I want to reiterate and maybe echo some of what councilor Novick said is that we don't know what the underspend for some of these agencies in the city are, is going to be. We do know what the interest is right now, which, again, as of this morning, we found out was 2 million more than we knew yesterday. So this is a much more sure and clear pot of money. And again, if there is underspend later, we can use that to correct the pcf interest. If people are so inclined, it doesn't make sense to do it the other way around. So I am very grateful for the folks up here who I know. It's been a tough few weeks for a lot of us. It's been a lot of hard negotiations, and I didn't get everything I wanted out of this. It's not my favorite thing in the world, but I think that we're going to save some city employees and save some core services while we plan for the future about what to do with our revenue moving forward, because that's a big discussion that this council needs to have. So thank you, colleagues, for being willing to be gracious and have those hard discussions, because none of this is easy, and I appreciate your time.

Thank you. Councilor Morillo councilor Kanal.

Angelita Morillo: Yeah, first, thanks to councilor Koyama Lane for for trying to help save those jobs. Those last two that we were just talking about there makes sense to withdraw does not appear that it has a path to a seventh vote. So I appreciate that. I still think it would have been the right thing to do. We can talk about that more later. I, I want to just first appreciate the willingness because I don't really know why there's a, some push to councilor Novick or, or pirtle-guiney for voting for that amendment last night, but just appreciate them being willing to do that and, and to, to work with us. I've, I've found that those conversations have been productive. And again, that's why I put a lot of the blame on how we don't allow for everyone to be involved in these conversations all the time with the public meetings law. I think there's a there's a distinction here. It is neither, in my opinion, a meaningless change, nor is it a poison pill. It's that it no longer targets a specific bureau. We all have different views on that, and I recognize that. But I we can get into that more later. But that is is a third option. And that's how I view what was what was done yesterday, getting back to the the underlying ordinances, I think it's important to talk about having clear sources of funding. I think the that's that's a commitment we need to have and we achieve it. I think it's it's fair to say, as councilor Morillo did multiple times now that there's there's a known amount of money, it's not just clear in terms of where it's coming from, but we actually know how much there is. It saves more jobs. It requires the evaluation so that we're not going blind into further reductions of positions over the course of the year. There are a great number of things that are not financial as well that are in this. And, and I hope that we get to see, hopefully slightly larger version of that, that comparison table that was in councilor Morillo slides with the distinctions between these two ordinances. And councilor Green laid it out as well yesterday. But there are things that are not financial that are in 2026-222. So and that's why I'll be supporting it. I hope that we're able to, to continue this conversation and, and hopefully come to a place where that's a, a, an option where we're having the conversation around getting enough information to do this job, right, not just in this moment, around this particular set of potential ordinance votes, but for the processes of staff adjustments that are happening over the course of the year. Thanks.

Thank you, councilor Green, last word.

Thank you. Just back to 2 to 2 is the underlying. I just want to appreciate the moment we're in because where we were a year ago, we did not have city administrator raymond lee. We hired a city administrator that was a permanent hire in a very competitive process. And that's no shade against the previous interim city administrator. He did the job he had to do. But a big part of what this ordinance is here to do and similar ordinances, I think both ordinances on the table are addressing that. Like there were some gaps that were created by the mayor's budget, multiple ways to try to address those gaps, recognizing that, no, it's not prudent to just always grab some one time money and plug some holes in the boats. But sometimes you have to plug the holes in the boats or else you sink. And so it's sometimes you have to step up and say, we, we do want to save these things right now because we're worried about the consequences of not doing so. And we have raymond who, who will have the full the benefit of being here from the jump. He's going to hire his change management people. And we have an opportunity through this. If this ordinance passes to to create a very clear roadmap to say, all right, we're going to come together with labor. We're going to talk about how to find those efficiencies together. So that way when we're here next time, it's it doesn't feel so clunky. And that's a big opportunity for the city of Portland. And I know it's been a rough process. I know a lot of people are watching right now to the very last word and just really hope. Hope we get it done. I do want to clarify, do we have to do an emergency ordinance next week?

No.

Okay. So it's a seven vote next.

Week, but budget adjustments go into effect immediately. So we don't have the 30 day worry about like we would with a normal heart rate.

So I would propose that we nobody consider any other future amendments going forward. So we just need to close the chapter on this and make an up or down choice between the two. So and I'm with you and you're right. So thank you. I'll leave you with that.

Thank you, councilor Green colleagues. With that, no one else in the queue, I now move both of these ordinances to second reading. We heard next week. With that that completes our agenda and we are adjourned.

Oh. Good.